March 30, 2024

Dear Friends,

I fervently believe that access to affordable, quality health care is a right that each and every person deserves. Throughout my time in Congress, I’ve worked tirelessly to make that belief a reality for Americans across the nation. When I began my service in the House of Representatives, one of the first votes I had the honor to cast was to advance the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and over the years, my Democratic colleagues and I have worked to ensure that more Americans than ever before are covered.

Last Saturday, we celebrated the 14th anniversary of the Affordable Care Act and marked a record year of more than 21 million Americans enrolled in quality health care under the ACA for 2024. As a result of our efforts to bolster our healthcare system, 24 million people have gained health care coverage through the ACA’s Medicaid expansion — a policy which has decreased income inequality, increased access to preventative care, and saved lives.

Despite the fact that millions of people depend on the ACA to stay healthy and financially secure, Republicans have relentlessly pushed for proposals that would strip coverage from millions of Americans, allow discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions, and even eliminate Medicaid coverage for children and families.

As we’ve learned all too well in recent years, the ACA is not the only health care policy Republicans are seeking to eliminate. But now, as the GOP continues its assault on affordable, accessible care, we’re standing up against these attacks to protect health care nationwide.

Protecting reproductive care and freedoms

After the U.S. Supreme Court eviscerated abortion protections and overturned Roe v. Wade, far-right Republicans in the halls of Congress, state legislatures, and courtrooms alike have used that decision as a green light to pursue a barrage of restrictive bans, making no secret of their end goal of a nationwide ban on abortion.

This week, the ongoing battle for reproductive rights was underscored as oral arguments began in the Supreme Court on Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA, a case that will determine whether mifepristone, a critical abortion medication, will remain legal. The fact remains that this drug is a safe and effective medication that has been approved by the FDA for well over two decades, and any attempts to restrict or prohibit its access not only endanger access to abortions, but also compromise other essential healthcare needs, such as managing miscarriages and treating conditions like endometriosis.

This week, I held a conversation with local residents, reproductive care providers, and advocates from the Capital Region to raise awareness of the need to preserve access to essential forms of health care amid ongoing GOP attacks on reproductive freedom nationwide. I was deeply moved to hear personal stories about what this essential care has meant for Capital Region residents and providers, and after listening to their powerful insights, I’m more determined than ever to keep up the fight to protect affordable access to reproductive care.

My conversations with constituents on critical health care also extended to taking the next steps in my yearslong effort to address the disease of addiction.

Bringing treatment and hope to those struggling with addiction

Over the last decade, I’ve been at the epicenter of Congressional efforts to respond to our national overdose epidemic. Key to that effort is my Mainstreaming Addiction Treatment Act, or MAT Act, a momentous bill I championed that was signed into law as part of the 2023 federal budget.

That law has dramatically expanded our nation’s ability to treat addiction by eliminating an outdated, bureaucratic barrier that long prevented practitioners from prescribing proven treatments like buprenorphine to their patients. By removing this red tape, the number of medical professionals who can prescribe buprenorphine for opioid use disorder has increased greatly — from 130,000 to 1.8 million.

This was a significant step forward, but our work did not end with the passage of the MAT Act. Now that we have eliminated that barrier, the real work begins to fully realize the dream of the MAT Act and make addiction treatment more accessible in every community. This week, I joined leaders and health professionals from the Capital District Physicians’ Health Plan (CDPHP), as well as state elected officials, to help launch CDPHP’s ‘Courage to Care’ program – an initiative that aims to reduce the stigma surrounding opioid use disorder (OUD) and employ incentives to encourage more providers to utilize evidence-based treatments like buprenorphine to treat it.

Whether advancing addiction and recovery efforts, lowering prescription drug costs, strengthening rights to reproductive health care, or bolstering the ACA, I remain as committed as ever to advancing legislation that improves health outcomes for all Americans.

As always, thank you for reading.

Your friend,

DID YOU KNOW?

My office and I are working to make sure you remain informed with the latest updates and recommendations from federal agencies. With that in mind, here is some information that may be of interest to you:

• Earlier this month, as part of National Consumer Protection Week, the Social Security Administration (SSA) designated National “Slam the Scam” Day — an outreach campaign to raise public awareness of Social Security scams and other government imposter scams.
• Last year, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) received over 228,000 complaints of government imposter scams, with Social Security as the most frequently impersonated agency.
• Recognizing the basic signs of a scam is helpful in stopping fraudulent activity. Remember:
  • Scammers pretend to be from an agency or organization you know in order to gain your trust.
  • Scammers say there is a problem or a prize.
  • Scammers pressure you to act immediately.
  • Scammers tell you to pay in a specific way.
• You can help your clients, friends, and family avoid scams by reminding them to:
  • Hang up on suspicious calls from “government officials” calling about a problem with a Social Security number or account.
  • NEVER make payments with gift cards, wire transfers, or by mailing cash.
• You can report Social Security scams to oig.ssa.gov, and report any other scams to reportfraud.ftc.gov.
• To learn more about Social Security scams and how to avoid them, you can check out SSA’s Scam Alert infographic HERE.