Frank Pallone: “Just to back up what I said previously about the implications for this Trump administration and Seema Verma's guidance…”

“Just to back up what I said previously about the implications for this Trump administration and Seema Verma's guidance that they put forward with regard to 1332, I want to read a section from a letter that was sent by 23 patient and consumer advocacy organizations in support of H.R. 986, the bill that is before us. These organizations include the Heart Association, the Lung Association, the Epilepsy Foundation, et cetera. This goes back to the guardrails. As I said, under 1332, in the ACA, there are guardrails that say that any waivers have to guarantee affordability, have to guarantee comprehensiveness of coverage, and have to, at the same time, not reduce the number of people with insurance. Nothing that Seema Verma or anything on the other side that is being said is suggesting in any way that, under this guidance, those principles wouldn't be violated. In fact, they would be violated. So this is what these 23 patient and consumer advocacy organizations say about the Trump guidance waiver: ``This gross misinterpretation of the guardrails will have real consequences for patients, steering people into substandard coverage, such as short-term, limited-duration plans and association health plans, which often do not cover the full range of benefits and services that patients rely on to manage their conditions.…”