Statement attributable to:
George M. Abraham, MD, MPH, FACP, FIDSA
President, American College of Physicians
WASHINGTON, D.C. June 17, 2021 –The American College of Physicians (ACP) is glad to see the decision announced by the Supreme Court this morning that will keep in place the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Eliminating the coverage, benefits and protections provided by this law would have thrown our health care system into chaos, and placed health care for millions of Americans in jeopardy. We are glad that the justices saw the need for the law to remain in place.
We know that people who do not have health insurance live sicker and die younger. For millions of people in our country, losing access to the health insurance they have under the ACA would have prevented them from getting care and harmed their health and well-being. Those who gain access to insurance through the law are not the only ones who benefit from it. The law ensures access to a set of essential benefits that health insurance plans have to cover, it provides no-cost access to preventive services, and it ensures that no one has to pay more for insurance due to personal characteristics or health circumstances outside of their control.
It is for all of these reasons that ACP has been strongly supportive of the law and opposed the repeated efforts to dismantle it. In this most recent case, we signed on to an amicus brief to the Supreme Court with other medical organizations that detailed the immense harm that a decision to do away with the law would have had.
With the improvements to the ACA and the additional cost savings that were included in the American Rescue Plan that Congress passed earlier this year, we have seen more than a million additional people take advantage of the special enrollment period this spring. People want health insurance; they just need to be able to afford it. Our hope is that now that the ACA is firmly settled law, that we can continue to find ways to improve it and to improve our health care system.
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About the American College of Physicians
The American College of Physicians is the largest medical specialty organization in the United States with members in more than 145 countries worldwide. ACP membership includes 163,000 internal medicine physicians (internists), related subspecialists, and medical students. Internal medicine physicians are specialists who apply scientific knowledge and clinical expertise to the diagnosis, treatment, and compassionate care of adults across the spectrum from health to complex illness. Follow ACP on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Contact: Jacquelyn Blaser, (202) 261-4572, jblaser@acponline.org