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Advocacy Alert: Oppose Tax Reform

Advocacy Alert: Your Action Needed

Tell your Members of Congress to oppose tax reform provisions that harm individuals and families facing rare or chronic medical conditions

Take Action Now

Congress is currently working on a comprehensive overhaul of the U.S. tax code. The House has already passed a measure and the Senate hopes to consider its proposal early in December. The goal is for both chambers to pass their own bills before going to a conference to negotiate a final proposal. At this time, both the House and Senate tax reform bills include provisions that would harm those affected by rare and/or chronic medical conditions:

House Bill

  • Eliminates the Orphan Drug Tax Credit and provides no new alternative to continue to incentivize and facilitate the development of therapies for rare diseases.
  • Eliminates the Deduction for Medical Expenses which many patients and their families claim to help offset the costs of medical care.

Senate Bill

  • Eliminates Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate to purchase insurance and the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that this action will result in 13 million Americans losing health coverage.
    • With fewer Americans (especially healthy individuals) buying into the insurance market, costs for insurance could drastically increase as the market becomes flooded with individuals that use health insurance frequently
  • Drastically restructures the Orphan Drug Tax Credit to make it much less generous and applicable in a way that would drastically reduce rare disease therapy development.

As Congress continues to consider tax reform, and which provisions will be included in any final measures, please contact your Senators and House Representative and ask them to oppose provisions undermining the Orphan Drug Tax Credit, the Medical Expense Deduction, and the individual mandate.

How To Take Action:

  • Visit www.senate.gov and identify the contact information for your two Senators by selecting your state.
    • Use the contact information for the DC office, which will include a phone number starting with 202
  • Visit www.house.gov and identify the contact information for your House Representative by entering your zip code in the upper right corner.
  • Call the offices and ask for the Health Legislative Assistant’s voicemail box or e-mail address.
  • Use the script below to leave or send a message.

 

Script for email or phone calls: 


Dear _______,

My name is _________ and I am a constituent from [home town]. As the legislative process for tax reform continues to move forward, please oppose any provisions eliminating or diminishing the Orphan Drug Tax Credit, the Medical Expense Deduction, and the individual mandate to purchase insurance. As an advocate for patients and commonsense tax policy, the aforementioned provisions are essential to maintaining medical innovation and promoting comprehensive care.

[Explain a little about your particular situation]

Thank you for time and for your consideration of my request.

Sincerely,

[Name]
[Address]

Advocacy Alert! Action Required: Tell Congress to Preserve Protections for Chronic Disease Patients

Advocacy Alert! Action Required: Tell Congress to Preserve Protections for Chronic Disease Patients

Contact your House Member to ask them to support critical patient protections during the current healthcare reform effort 

Tell Congress to Preserve Protections for Chronic Disease Patients

The leadership of the House of Representatives is continuing to work with conservative and moderate Republicans in an effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Their proposal, the American Health Care Act (AHCA), was pulled from consideration a few weeks ago when it could not muster the votes to pass. However, House leaders continue to try and find common ground in order to modify the House leadership bill to make it passable.

The emerging House leadership plan includes a number of provisions that would be devastating for patients with chronic, complex, and costly medical conditions. The bill would remove protections for individuals with pre-existing health conditions. It would also eliminate the ACA’s Essential Health Benefitsfederal quality standards for health insurance policies.

In place of these protections, the bill would expand health savings accounts and tax credits, establish state risk sharing subsidies, and leave it to states to determine which essential health benefits they will offer—likely leading to lower quality benefits for patients with costly diseases.

For patients with costly health conditions, they could likely never put enough money in a health savings account, nor would they be able to take advantage of a tax break associated with not utilizing healthcare services. Further, segregating costly patients into high risk pools has not worked in the past and would jeopardize access for the most vulnerable.

Elimination of the federal mandate that insurers offer a minimum level of benefits and allow states the flexibility to decide these benefits would likely mean that many states would have the incentive to not recommend comprehensive benefits to those with pre-existing health conditions. Insurers could also dramatically hike premiums for those with expensive chronic health care needs.

The House of Representatives could vote on this bill when it returns on April 24th from the Easter recess. Grassroots outreach and educating Members of Congress about the needs of chronic disease patients continues to influence the overall debate. At this time, please reach out to your House member and ask them to protect patients and oppose discriminatory and dangerous provisions.

Take Action

  • Secure the contact information for your House representative by visiting House.gov and using the “Find Your Senator/Representative” query tool in the upper right corner.
  • Call the office and ask for the Health Legislative Assistant. You can either leave a voicemail or request their e-mail address and send them a message using the template below.
  • Politely and occasionally follow up on your request. You should have an expectation that the office will respond to your specific concerns.
  • If you would like to do more, you can request a brief meeting with the staff at your members’ local offices (the location information is on their websites).

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Dear _______,

My name is _________ and I am a constituent from _________. I am also an advocate for the community of individuals impacted by _________ (condition). I write to urge you to maintain stability for chronic disease patients as you and your colleagues consider healthcare reform and changes to the American Health Care Act (AHCA). The AHCA in its current form would be devastating for my community.

Segregating high cost patients into high risk programs has not worked in the past, even with a federal subsidy. Additionally, eliminating the federal mandate that insurers offer a minimum level of benefits would likely mean that many states could offer substandard benefits for those with pre-existing health conditions or hike premiums for the most vulnerable Americans in desperate need of essential healthcare.

Please make sure any proposal maintains crucial patient protections that promote access and prevent financial hardships. Specifically, please ensure any future proposal:

  • maintains essential health benefits
  • prohibits pre-existing condition discrimination
  • prohibits lifetime and annual caps on benefits
  • allows young adults to stay on family coverage until they are 26
  • limits out-of-pocket costs for patients in a meaningful way

[Add a paragraph of brief information about the medical condition you are concerned about. Tell your story.]

Thank you for your time and your consideration of this letter. Please tell me how you have responded to my request.

Sincerely,

[Name]

[Address]