Keep Your Health Plan Act
Americans who have a health care plan that they like ought to be able to keep that plan. To that end, I joined Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) and a number of other Members of Congress in introducing H.R. 3350, the Keep Your Health Plan Act. This bill would allow health insurance plans currently available on the individual market to be offered next year, and also would give Americans the choice to continue enrolling in those plans without being penalized under Obamacare’s individual mandate.
Both before and after the Obamacare health care plan was signed law into more than three years ago, President Obama and other supporters of the law repeatedly reassured Americans that “If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away. No matter what.” This promise – made without caveats or exceptions – was reportedly spoken by the President at least 34 times, according to the Tampa Bay Times’ independent Politifact.
However, this blanket promise simply isn’t true for everyone. Because of new Obamacare standards, “thousands of people in Virginia and elsewhere are getting notices that their existing plans will no longer be offered after Jan. 1 or the next time they are up for renewal,” read a recent report in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Clarence Page, a member of the editorial board at the Chicago Tribune – President Obama’s hometown paper – says he “support[s] most of [President Obama’s] policies and programs,” but “in this instance, he would have to be delusional to think he was telling the truth.” In a recent interview with NBC News, the President admitted that “we weren't as clear as we needed to be,” and said “I am sorry that [people] -- you know, are finding themselves in this situation, based on assurances they got from me.”
My colleagues and I in the House of Representatives are ready, willing, and able to help President Obama keep this broken promise. This is a mess that he and his Democrat allies in Congress created, passing Obamacare without Republican input or support. If the President and his allies want to help us fix this mess – and are not intent on just bashing Republicans – they too will support the Keep Your Health Plan Act.
If you wish to make your voice heard on the “if-you-like-it-you-can-keep-it” promise, you can contact my office or become a Citizen Cosponsor of our bill at https://www.cosponsor.gov/details/hr3350-113. You can also contact my office or visit www.gop.gov/yourstory/ to share your experience with Obamacare.
Upcoming Traveling Staff Office Hours
My team and I view constituent services a top priority, and we work hard to serve you. In an effort to conveniently assist you and others throughout Southwest Virginia, Southside Virginia, and the Alleghany Highlands, we travel regularly throughout the Ninth District to participate in meetings, attend events, and hold traveling staff office hours. I unfortunately cannot attend every meeting that I am invited to because of work in Washington and the geographic size of the district. I often tell people that, if you draw a line roughly from Covington to Salem and then another from roughly Salem to Martinsville (and take out Franklin County), everything else in Virginia is in the Ninth District. That is why we have traveling staff office hours at least once a month in every area of the district.
During traveling staff office hours, members of my team will be on hand in various communities for you to voice your opinion on legislative matters or to help you with federal agencies or programs like the Department of Veterans Affairs, Social Security, or Medicare. The traveling staff office hours schedule for the remainder of this year can be found on my website, www.morgangriffith.house.gov.
As always, if you have questions, concerns, or comments, feel free to call my Abingdon office at 276-525-1405 or my Christiansburg office at 540-381-5671. To reach my office by email, please visit my website at www.morgangriffith.house.gov.
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