December 14, 2015
Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey believes the Affordable Care Act is in its final days.
Speaking to "The Cat's Roundtable" on New York’s AM-970 radio station in an interview that aired Sunday, Toomey said the healthcare legislation was in a "death-spiral" that he and his GOP colleagues predicted.
He claimed the people who were supposed to be signing up under the law weren't doing so, driving up the cost of premiums and hurting those who were meant to sign up - the young and healthy. Here's a transcript of his comments, via The Hill:
“Especially given a hospital has to treat someone who shows up and you can buy health insurance even if you already have an existing condition, these people are not in fact signing up and paying the premiums,” he said.
“And so, the people who are participating are the older and sicker people, that’s driving people up, that causes a further exodus of younger, healthy people,” he added.
The senator also noted about half of the state-based healthcare co-ops set up under the law have failed. He called for repealing the bill in the interview.
The legislation passed in 2009 with a Democrat-controlled House and Senate before Toomey took office in 2011.
Earlier in December, Toomey, along with other Republicans, passed legislation in the Senate that would reverse many key provisions of the law. President Barack Obama is expected to veto it.
That legislation and his comments come on the heels of the Tuesday deadline for people to sign up for health insurance under Obamacare if they want their coverage to begin Jan. 1.
