Contact: Joe Zepecki
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202-445-1517
WISCONSIN – One year ago today, 217 Congressional Republicans led by Speaker Paul Ryan, voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Their legislation would have ripped health care coverage away from millions of people, raised costs for middle class-families, imposed an age tax, and gutted protections for those with pre-existing conditions – all while giving big insurance and pharmaceutical companies hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks.
“Speaker Ryan and Congressmen Sensenbrenner, Grothman, Duffy and Gallagher voted to take away Americans’ health care, and Wisconsinites won’t forget it,” said Joe Zepecki of Protect Our Care Wisconsin. “They voted to rip coverage away from 23 million people, including 416,600 Wisconsinites; Wisconsinites won’t forget that they voted to raise premiums by nearly $2,000; Wisconsinites won’t forget that they voted to impose an ‘age tax’ by allowing insurance companies to charge older Americans five times more for health insurance; Wisconsinites won’t forget that they voted to allow insurance companies to re-implement lifetime limits on coverage; and won’t forget that they voted to once again allow discrimination against Wisconsinites with pre-existing conditions.”
In Wisconsin,
416,600 Wisconsinites would have lost their health care by 2026, including 223,500 with Medicaid and 7,600 veterans receiving Medicaid;
Insurance companies could charge nearly 2.5 million Wisconsinites with pre-existing conditions as much as six figures more;
65,103 Wisconsin women could have been denied access to care because Planned Parenthood would have been defunded;
Older Wisconsinites over age 50 could have faced an age tax that allowed insurance companies to charge them five times more than younger people; and
10,838 Wisconsinites would have lost their jobs by 2022 due to the negative economic impact of the AHCA.
In the year since the vote, Wisconsinites have stood up loudly and resoundingly to reject this inexcusable bill, flooding Congress with calls, showing up to protests and rallies, and ultimately defeating repeal in the Senate.
Since then, poll after poll has shown that health care is the top issue on Americans’ minds. Just one year ago every Wisconsin Republican serving in the U.S. House of Representatives voted to take away Wisconsinites care, and that’s a vote we won’t forget.
