Vote Stephanie Schmid to Protect Your Healthcare!

The health and wellbeing of millions of Americans will be on the line in November when the Supreme Court hears a Republican-led challenge to the Affordable Care Act. With the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett, there is now a very real possibility of losing the ACA. After all, that’s exactly what President Trump said he’s hoping for.

If the ACA is overturned, it will be up to Congress to claw back its critical protections, either in concert with or in spite of the next administration. Chris Smith is trying to appear generally supportive of popular provisions in the law, but this doesn’t match his record. If voters have a full picture of Smith’s history with the ACA, they will realize that they cannot rely on him to be the advocate they need.

Smith opposed the ACA for years and irresponsibly voted for a full repeal without a replacement numerous times. He also voted several times to weaken the law. For example, in just one appropriations bill, Smith voted for amendments that would have removed funding to enforce the Medical Loss Ratio provision, (this requires health insurers spend 80% of premiums on medical claims and improving care instead of boosting profits), prohibited funding to pay federal workers who implemented the ACA, prohibited funds to carry out provisions of the ACA, and, most appallingly, removed funding for work "to specify or define” the essential benefits required by the ACA.

Those benefits, which Smith didn’t want “specified or defined” in the ACA, became:

1. Ambulatory patient services (outpatient services)
2. Emergency services
3. Hospitalization
4. Maternity and newborn care
5. Mental health and substance abuse disorder services, including behavioral health treatment
6. Prescription drugs
7. Rehabilitative and habilitative services, (those that help patients acquire, maintain, or improve skills necessary for daily functioning) and devices
8. Laboratory services
9. Preventive and wellness services and chronic disease management
10. Pediatric services, including oral and vision care

Chris Smith fought tooth and nail to prevent all of that - plus the ACA’s preexisting condition coverage guarantee and Medicaid expansion - from becoming law.

Smith has also said the following about the ACA:
“There is no doubt whatsoever that senior citizens and disabled persons will lose certain health benefits they now enjoy.”

“Obamacare is a crippling blow to both healthcare in America and our economy. Not only will Obamacare erode and undermine the quality of healthcare in America, it will...drag down the economy, hurt businesses, and destroy jobs.”

“Government bureaucrats may construe a patient's age, prognosis and medical outcome as factors precluding coverage of a vast array of services, from knee and hip replacements to expensive interventions to combat cancer.”

The ACA would lead to “the end of employer-based healthcare. It will also lead to a significant degrading of healthcare delivery in our country.”

The ACA would erode Medicaid by “threatening the participation of physicians in the program.”
None of this happened.

When Smith finally voted against Republican efforts to repeal the ACA in 2017, he offered only a quiet statement while his party came within one vote of success. This June, with millions of Americans losing job-based insurance due to COVID, Smith voted against expanding the ACA.
Smith always claimed he wanted to protect people with preexisting conditions and expand Medicaid, but neither he nor his party have ever come up with a way to do so. In the meantime, he participated in the GOP’s assault on the law for seven years, and refused to improve it this summer.

If we need Congress to restore the protections of the ACA, Smith’s record does not inspire confidence. Fortunately, voters in the Fourth District have an alternative.

Stephanie Schmid is challenging Smith for his seat, and can help guarantee healthcare for every American. She supports a healthcare plan which automatically enrolls uninsured or underinsured individuals in a safety-net program while allowing people to keep their private plans. This way, households won’t go broke over medical bills or end up uninsured when a family member is unemployed.

A fight over the future of healthcare in America may be on the horizon, and the stakes couldn’t be higher for millions of Americans. Smith has shown that the best he can offer is a quiet defense of the ACA when he isn’t voting to dismantle it. To protect their healthcare, voters should elect Stephanie Schmid.