WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Angus King (I-Maine), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), along with several families of children from across America who have survived cancer, joined together today to speak out against the American Health Care Act’s failure to provide Americans with preexisting conditions with affordable, quality care.

In his remarks, Senator King emphasized how having health insurance can mean the difference between life and death, as it did for him when he was a young Senate staffer forty-three years ago.

“But what’s always haunted me since that day was that somewhere in America that year, 1974, there was a young man who also had a mole on his back but who didn’t have insurance – that didn’t have access to the care that I got. And he’s gone. And that’s not fair,” Senator King said during the press conference. “In the richest country in the world, to have life or death be decided by the accident of whether or not you had health insurance is just not right – and so that’s why the bill that passed the House, to me, is such a cruel joke on the American people.”

To watch archived video of the press conference, click HERE.

Following the press conference, Senator King also released a video in which he discussed a meeting he had yesterday with the Jarvis family of Bangor. Alex Jarvis, 15, discussed with Senator King how, shortly after turning 10, she was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a form of bone cancer that has no predisposing factors and is considered spontaneous. Alexa underwent a year of chemotherapy and several serious surgeries to help reconstruct the bones impacted by the cancer.

Today, she is cancer free – however, in the eyes of insurance companies she will now always have a preexisting condition, and without the protections offered under the Affordable Care Act, she could be denied insurance.

            “This isn’t something that she was at fault for. It isn’t something she did wrong. It isn’t something she brought on herself. It’s something that happened to her that could have happened to any of our children,” Senator King said in the video. “That’s why we’ve got to fix this terrible bill that was passed in the House, and one of the ways we’re going to fix is by being sure that people with preexisting conditions have a chance to get reasonably priced health insurance. That’s not too much to ask.”

An estimated 52 million Americans under the age of 65 have preexisting conditions. Yet, the American Health Care Act would do nothing to help lower the cost of their care. In fact, it takes away the guarantee of affordable care for those with such conditions. That means anyone who once suffered, or continues to suffer from conditions like diabetes, cancer or chronic asthma could be forced to pay more for their coverage under the bill.

Senator King has spoken out against the AHCA as “the most ill-conceived, damaging, and downright cruel piece of legislation” he has seen in his adult life. He has blasted the bill’s age tax, which makes insurance more expensive for older Americans, and denounced the bill’s impact on Maine’s fight against the opioid epidemic, its impact on people with disabilities, and how it will harm rural hospitals across the state.

Senator King opposes the repeal of the Affordable Care Act and has repeatedly called on his colleagues to engage in bipartisan discussions to make meaningful improvements to the law before rushing to repeal of it.

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