Important Announcement from CEO, Dave Ricci

Access to health care and adequate health insurance coverage is a fundamental human right, so we at Saint Francis Healthcare and Trinity Health are deeply disappointed in last week's House decision to pass the amended American Health Care Act (AHCA). We applaud our Delaware legislators who voted "no."

As it is now, the AHCA would decrease the number of individuals and families with health care coverage, erode crucial insurance protections and further destabilize the individual insurance market. It would also remove hundreds of billions of dollars from the Medicaid program, forcing states to eliminate coverage for the most vulnerable individuals and families, directly affecting our Saint Francis Healthcare patient populations.

This version of the American Health Care Act would allow states to opt out of essential benefits requirements, decrease protections for people with pre-existing conditions, and reinstate state-based, high-risk pools. Historically, high-risk pools have had limited success in ensuring access to those with pre-existing conditions, and have also been financially prohibitive to enrollees and states. The additional funding for high-risk pools provided in the amendments is not even close to sufficient. The financial burden will instead fall to people with pre-existing conditions, who will be forced to pay extraordinarily high premiums for coverage, and likely lose their access to health insurance altogether. While the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), has not yet scored the amended bill, previous CBO projections estimated that the AHCA would result in 24 million fewer people covered in 2026. It is anticipated that this bill would result in greater losses of coverage.

The American Health Care Act does not adhere to the principles that Saint Francis Healthcare and Trinity Health have established for evaluating health care reform, and we will ask the Senate to consider alternative policy approaches. We will continue to encourage the Administration, Congress and others at the federal and state levels to explore ways to improve access to coverage and care in the United States. We are hopeful that there are bipartisan, public-private solutions that help our nation move forward in caring for everyone and we will do all we can to help them find those solutions.