Sheehy’s Health Care Plan Would Stick Tens of Thousands of Montanans with Higher Health Care Costs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, May 15, 2024

CONTACT
rehm@mtdems.org

Sheehy’s health care plan would “mean higher health care costs and leave tens of thousands of Montanans without health insurance coverage”
 

Helena, MT – New reporting from the Montana Independent outlined Tim Sheehy’s false claims about the Affordable Care Act and that repealing the law would “mean higher health care costs and leave tens of thousands of Montanans without health insurance coverage.”

In a candidate questionnaire, Sheehy falsely claimed the Affordable Care Act was responsible for high premiums. Repealing the bill would jeopardize health insurance for Montanans across the state, especially those in rural communities. 

This is not Sheehy’s first assault on Montanans’ health care. Sheehy previously announced his “pure privatization” plan, which would raise costs and dismantle Medicare for Montana’s seniors, shutter rural hospitals, repeal the Affordable Care Act, and end protections for those with pre-existing conditions.

Read more below. 

The Montana Independent: Sheehy attacks health care law that provides coverage for tens of thousands of Montanans
May 13, 2024
Josh Israel

• Montana Republican U.S. Senate candidate Tim Sheehy falselyclaimed in an April candidate questionnaire that the Affordable Care Act is responsible for high premiums and suggested that he would like to see it replaced with a system of unregulated health insurance companies. Repeal of the 2010 law would likely mean higher health care costs and leave tens of thousands of Montanans without health insurance coverage.

• A Sheehy spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story. Last August, however, Sheehy was recordedtelling attendees at an event: “Our hospitals have been built around federal health care subsidies. So in my opinion, we need to return health care to pure privatization.” In the audio, posted online by Semafor, Sheehy claimed that the system worked before health insurance, when people just paid for medical care out of pocket.

• The Affordable Care Act was enacted to reduce the number of Americans without health insurance. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, more than 40 million people had insurance coverage in early 2023 through the law. 

• In Montana, provisions in the law that expanded access to Medicaid allowed more than 117,000 additional individuals to get coverage through that program, according to a 2023 Kaiser Family Foundation analysis. Another 66,000 people in the state had purchased affordable private plans through the law’s insurance exchange as of early 2024. The law also allows young adults to stay on their family’s insurance plans until age 26.

• Other provisions in the law required that insurance plans include free annual physicals, no-cost vaccines, and benefits for prescription drugs, saving patients money. It also requires that insurers partially refund premiums if they won’t spend an average of at least 80% of that money on medical care. 

• While health care costs have gone up since the law went into effect in 2010, they have grown at a slower rate over that time than in the previous decade. 

• “Tim Sheehy’s pure privatization plan would be catastrophic for Montana’s seniors, families, and rural communities,” Hannah Rehm, a senior communications adviser for the Montana Democratic Party, told the Montana Independent. “While Sheehy is dead set on stripping lifesaving health care from hardworking Montanans, Jon Tester has worked tirelessly to lower prescription drug costs, expand health care access for rural Montanans, and protect Medicare for seniors.”

• Tester voted for the 2010 law and for the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which capped annual out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs for Medicare Part D enrollees and authorized the government to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies for drug lower prices.

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