| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 22, 2022 |
PRESS CONTACT Juan Fortenberry juan@firesidecampaigns.com |
Health Care Voices Founder and Cancer Survivor Laura Packard Recognizes Anniversary of the Affordable Care Act
DENVER — Today marks the 12th anniversary of the enactment of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Since then, the ACA has faced countless legal challenges in state and federal courts. In spite of these repeated attempts to overturn the law, the ACA continues to help millions of Americans access affordable, life-saving care with plans to expand opportunities for enrollment year-round for eligible applicants beginning later this month.
Health Care Voices Founder Laura Packard issued the following statement:
“When I was diagnosed with stage 4 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in the spring of 2017, the Affordable Care Act saved my life. As a self-employed person, my previous health insurance was a junk policy. Without the ability to enroll in good insurance under the ACA, I would have ended up bankrupt or dead.”
“Later this month, a new ACA special enrollment period will go into effect allowing applicants whose income is below 150% of the federal poverty level to enroll in ACA healthcare plans year-round. This is an important advancement since millions of Americans remain uninsured and since many of the policies from President Biden’s American Rescue Plan–which led to a record number of ACA enrollments last year–are expiring.”
“Even with this special enrollment period, however, we still need Congress to act to protect millions of families from the impact of sky-rocketing healthcare costs. Building a better America begins with investing in healthcare. Lowering the cost of prescription drugs, filling the Medicaid coverage gap, and renewing subsidies for ACA health plans to protect access to affordable care for all Americans must be made a priority–because millions of lives depend on it.”
Laura Packard is the founder of Health Care Voices, executive director of Health Care Voter, and a stage-4 cancer survivor. The Affordable Care Act saved her life. She is a co-host of Care Talk, a call-in health care show on act.tv to answer America’s health insurance questions about the ACA, Medicare and Medicaid (airing Mondays at 4:30pm ET). If you’d like to connect with Laura to discuss these anniversaries or health care policy more generally, please reach out to juan@firesidecampaigns.com.
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