Working for Vermonters' Healthcare

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Senator Leahy is a strong supporter of this year’s health care reform legislation, signed into law by President Obama. The new law will prevent insurance companies from denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions, establishing lifetime coverage caps, and dropping people’s insurance when they get sick. This new law will also let young adults stay on their parent’s insurance plans until they are 26 and will expand preventative and primary care coverage to all Americans. It will begin the process of controlling health care’s exploding long-term costs; create an insurance exchange which pools individuals and small businesses statewide enabling them to negotiate plans and rates as a group; and allow employees of Vermont’s small businesses access to better, lower-cost health care.

As one of the most forward-looking states, Vermont has been at the forefront of providing and paying for health care, particularly for children. Because of this, Vermont was at risk of unfairly losing opportunities for federal Medicaid funds in the new law to get other states up to the standards Vermont has set. Senator Leahy ensured that federal matching money was distributed more fairly so that Vermont was not punished for its leadership in health care policy.

In his role as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Leahy pushed hard for anti-fraud provisions and worked to include $250 million to investigate and prosecute offenders over the next ten years in the new law. The law also includes provisions to streamline the procedures to review Medicare payments before they are made, to identify and stop Medicare fraud as soon as possible.

Restoring Anti-trust Laws to the Health Insurance Industry. The 1945 McCarran-Ferguson Act provides an exemption from federal anti-trust laws for insurance companies. Many states have competition laws that apply to the insurance industry, but the most egregious anticompetitive conduct – price fixing, bid rigging, and market allocation–occur across multiple states and is best investigated and prevented by federal anti-trust authorities. Senator Leahy has been a long-time advocate for repealing this exemption and ensuring that the insurance industry plays by the same rules as every other business in the country. Senator Leahy was a co-sponsor of the Insurance Industry Anti-trust Enforcement Act of 2006, legislation that would have almost fully repealed the McCarran-Ferguson Act. Senator Leahy later introduced a revised version of this bill that would have fully repealed the anti-trust exemption for the insurance industry. Most recently, Senator Leahy introduced a more limited repeal that focused on the health insurance and medical malpractice insurance industries. This legislation was filed as an amendment to the health care reform legislation considered by the Senate.

Free Health Care Clinics. Senator Leahy authored a provision in the new health care reform law to help ease the crunch on free medical clinics in Vermont and across the country. The Leahy amendment makes it clear that the same level of medical malpractice coverage under the Federal Tort Claims Act received by Community Health Centers will be extended to free clinics. As a result, the funds these clinics use on medical malpractice costs can now be directed to provide necessary health care to the uninsured.

Health IT. Senator Leahy supported funds included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to implement an advanced and secure electronic management system for patient treatment and health information in hospitals and clinics across the state. Vermont has long been at the forefront of using electronic medical records to improve health care delivery and reduce costs for practitioners and patients thanks to funding Senator Leahy secured for Vermont Information Technology Leaders in Montpelier. Because of Senator Leahy’s work, our state will continue to lead the country in decreasing paperwork, reducing medical errors, and increasing the accuracy of pharmacy prescriptions.

State Children’s Health Insurance Program. Senator Leahy has been a consistent leader in the effort to make sure that our nation’s most vulnerable patients, our children, are covered by health insurance. In Vermont, these funds have been used to create the Dr. Dynasaur program and have helped Vermont have one of the lowest rates of uninsured children in the country.

Prescription Drugs. Prescription drug costs have become an enormous burdenon many Vermonters, particularly seniors, and Senator Leahy has been fighting to make necessary medication more affordable and covered by Medicare. He co-sponsored legislation intended to legalize the safe importation of prescription drugs, and to change the rules for the manufacture and marketing of generics, making them more widely available and affordable. He also supported the inclusion of a provision in the health care reform law that gives seniors $250 towards plugging the Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage gap, or “donut hole,” provides a 50% discount on brand name drugs seniors purchase if they fall in the coverage gap, and will gradually eliminate the donut hole completely.

Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. Senator Leahy was an original co-sponsor of this legislation, introduced by the late Senator Kennedy, which, for the first time, gives the Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate tobacco products and bans flavored cigarettes–commonly used to target children.