by Lt. Gov Austin Davis
When you’re a first-time parent, you worry about everything—is the baby eating enough? Is the baby eating too much? What kind of diapers are best? Will this laundry detergent give the baby a rash? Is this car seat safe enough?
As a new dad of a five-month-old, I admit it’s a lot. But there’s one thing no new parent in Pennsylvania should have to worry about: health coverage for your family.
That’s because Pennsylvania’s official health insurance marketplace—Pennie—can help you find affordable, high-quality health coverage. During the recent open enrollment period, almost 435,000 Pennsylvanians got covered through our state’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplace. That represents a 17 percent increase over last year’s figure and a record-high number of enrollees in the Commonwealth.
Across the country, the Biden-Harris Administration is delivering on their pledge to lower health care costs for seniors and families, and now a record-breaking 21.3 million Americans are signed up for a 2024 health plan through the ACA Marketplace. This is more than 9 million more than when President Biden took office.
Thanks to President Biden and Democrats in Congress, millions of Americans are getting quality health care. Eighty percent of enrollees have found coverage through the Marketplace for $10 or less per month. This was made possible by President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which lowered health care premiums for people who buy coverage on their own. The Biden administration also invested in outreach and education to help people enroll, with a particular focus on communities of color.
The Biden-Harris Administration increased Black enrollment in health coverage through the ACA by 49 percent from 2020 to 2022, helping more Black families gain health insurance than ever before. They also capped the cost of insulin at $35 a month for folks on Medicare and expanded postpartum coverage from 60 days to one year for new mothers in 43 states, including Pennsylvania, through Medicaid. Ensuring new moms can stay covered is vitally important for dealing with our Black maternal mortality crisis.
While millions of people are now enjoying the peace of mind and access to care that comes with coverage, Donald Trump, who has all but secured the Republican nomination, is vowing to terminate the ACA if he is elected. We’ve seen this playbook before.
President Trump and his MAGA allies are resurfacing a battle they lost in 2017 when they tried to repeal the ACA and its protections for people with pre-existing conditions. Repealing the ACA would touch nearly every household in the country. In addition to over 40 million Americans losing affordable coverage, more than 135 million Americans with pre-existing conditions would lose critical protections, and 50 million seniors would have to pay more for prescription drugs.
Donald Trump and his MAGA Republican allies in Congress are also fighting to repeal the health care measures of the Inflation Reduction Act, which not only lowered premium costs for millions of families, but lowered prescription drug costs for seniors. Despite the fact that more Americans are relying on the ACA than ever before, Trump and his GOP lapdogs in Congress can’t wait to gut the health care law and kick millions off their coverage—all to please their Big Pharma and insurance industry donors.
Many of us remember what it was like before the Affordable Care Act, when insurance companies could kick you off your coverage for having a pre-existing condition like asthma or diabetes, when they could charge you more simply for being a woman. That’s the world Donald Trump wants to take us back to—a place where families have to worry about whether their health coverage will be there for them when they need it.
Don’t Pennsylvania parents have enough to worry about? We’re already dealing with too little sleep and too much caffeine.
Austin Davis is the lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania.
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