Health insurance in the U.S. is still extraordinarily expensive and overly complicated. But for the past 13 years, at least it's been somewhat better. Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the federal government required health insurance providers to provide preventative care services at no cost, in order to enhance public health and increase access to important screenings for cancer, heart disease, and more.
That was the case until
March 2023. In that month, a federal judge in Texas
handed greedy profit-obsessed health insurance corporations a huge win by striking down these important, life-saving provisions.Health insurance companies are supposed to exist to improve the health of the people. The executive branch and Congress must work together to push back and protect these important preventative services!The ACA had also required insurers to cover medications that prevent HIV, such as PrEP, as well as birth control methods. But all of that is currently at risk.
Why? What cruel individual would want to make these services less available? The U.S. already has the
highest rates of death for treatable or preventable conditions, compared to all other high-income nations on Earth. Meanwhile, per person we spend more on healthcare than residents of any other high-income country. We can't afford to have fewer affordable health services available to us!
"Health" insurance companies want to do everything possible to avoid actually augmenting people's health. Their main goal seems to be taking money paid towards premiums and deductibles, and then hoarding it. But that is not what the healthcare industry should be about.
Congressional lawmakers must push back and insist on re-codifying these measures into law, and the Biden administration must back them up.
Tell the U.S. Congress: don't let radical, pro-corporate judges take away our healthcare! Sign the petition if you want to protect your health!