“The passage of the Affordable Care Act was a major milestone in fixing our broken health care system and expanding health care to millions. But it’s clear we still have much more work to do to continue to improve our health care system so that every American can enjoy universal, quality, affordable health care. That’s why I support Medicare for All, and why we must do everything we can to improve access to health care for each and every person living in America.”

– Rep. Adam Schiff

 

With tens of millions of individuals living throughout the United States remaining uninsured and millions more struggling to afford skyrocketing out-of-pocket costs, it’s abundantly clear that the American health care system is in desperate need of reform. Adam believes that everyone – no matter what they can afford – is entitled to quality health care services. That’s why he’s been a dedicated advocate for the expansion of quality, comprehensive health care insurance, fighting for universal coverage as an original cosponsor of the Medicare for All Act, while also pushing for the full implementation of the Affordable Care Act and expansion of access to health care. Adam believes that Congress can and must do more to ensure that our health care system allows everyone to live happy, healthy lives.

 

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Improving Our Health Care System

Adam is a strong advocate for progressive and practical health care reform and believes affordable, quality health care is a fundamental human right. Adam is proud to be an original cosponsor of the Medicare for All Act and believes we must make every effort to provide universal coverage to all Americans. Because no one should go without care. As we fight for universal health care, Adam believes we must expand Medicare and Medicaid to cover more and more Americans. 

Adam is also committed to full implementation of the Affordable Care Act, which has already expanded and improved access to health care for millions of Americans – marking a monumental step forward in fixing our country’s broken and costly health care system. Adam will continue to support efforts to bolster our health care system and fight back against craven Republican attempts to dismantle the ACA and cruelly eliminate coverage for millions.

 

Protecting Medicare and Medicaid

Adam is a strong proponent of important safety net programs that have dependably served our nation’s most vulnerable populations for decades, including seniors, people with complex health care needs, and low-income families. Adam was an early advocate for the expansion of Medi-Cal to ensure that low-income children and families, pregnant women, and people with disabilities have access to free or low-cost quality health care in the state of California. He also opposes transforming the Medicare program into a voucher-based system, which would increase health care costs for a majority of seniors in the traditional Medicare program and all seniors in Medicare Advantage.

To maintain a robust health care workforce to care for a growing Medicare population, Adam is also a strong supporter of permanent Medicare reimbursement reform for physicians. Each year, Congress has had to override cuts to physician reimbursements which were mandated by the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. Schiff believes that this flawed system should be repealed and replaced with a solution which rewards physicians based on the quality of care they provide to Medicare beneficiaries. Finally, Adam supports expanding Medicare and Medicaid, including by offering vision, dental and hearing coverage for seniors and individuals who experience disabilities who often will go without care otherwise.

 

Investing in Medical Research, Public, and Global Health

Even before the global pandemic, Adam has consistently advocated for increased funding for the National Institutes of Health, which assists thousands of cutting-edge medical research projects across the nation that benefit the lives of millions of Americans. He believes that consistent and long-term funding for the NIH is critical to ensuring that America remains competitive in the world of scientific progress. 

To eliminate barriers and ensure universal access to HIV prevention medications for everyone who needs them, Adam leads efforts in Congress to eliminate all out-of-pocket costs for the HIV prevention medications, PrEP and PEP. Adam also supports robust funding for HIV/AIDS, viral hepatitis, STD, and diabetes prevention programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He also supports the efforts of the public health community to fight for global vaccines and immunization through the US Agency for International Development, UNICEF, and the Gavi Alliance. While we have made progress in our efforts to curb the prevalence of many debilitating diseases, there is still work to be done among the global community to completely eradicate them so that they no longer pose a threat to children and families across the globe.

 

Maintaining a Strong Health Care Workforce

California’s 30th District is home to community health centers and world-renowned hospitals, including Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. For this reason, Adam has been a strong proponent of boosting the Community Health Center program, which helps to ensure that health centers can continue to remain responsive to community needs by providing high-quality primary and preventive care to our community’s most vulnerable populations.

As our health care workers continue to fight on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is more important than ever that Congress ensures robust support for our health care providers. That’s why Adam supports efforts to improve and expand access to mental health services for health care workers.

Adam also supports the federally funded Graduate Medical Education program, which is critical in attracting and preparing the best and brightest medical students for specialization in high-need fields such as primary care and children’s health care. To further address the predicted shortage of primary care physicians soon, Adam is in favor of raising the current cap on the number of Medicare-supported GME slots across the country to encourage 15,000 new physicians to join the health care workforce.

 

Protecting a Woman’s Right to Choose

As a member of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus, Adam is fighting to protect reproductive rights for individuals across the United States, including the constitutionally protected right to access abortion services. He has a strong voting record in opposition to a variety of anti-choice bills that restrict a woman’s right to choose and supports numerous initiatives to protect women at reproductive clinics and to provide increased funding for international and domestic family planning programs.

In recent years, anti-choice lawmakers at the federal and state levels have taken extreme measures to roll back reproductive rights, and it is more important than ever that Congress take action to ensure that the rights afforded over 50 years ago in the Supreme Court decision under Roe v. Wade are codified in federal statute. That’s why Adam joined with his Democratic colleagues in re-introducing the Women’s Health Protection Act and voted for its passage in the House of Representatives. If signed into law, this legislation would ensure access to abortion services regardless of what state an individual lives in. 

 

Combatting Vaccine Hesitancy and Misinformation

Adam has been the leader in Congress on countering vaccine misinformation and encouraging companies to combat vaccine hesitancy. Adam has repeatedly called on Amazon, Google, YouTube and Facebook to take aggressive action to help end the pandemic and remedy vaccine misinformation on their platforms. We should be concerned as a society when these platforms are actively recommending information or products that discourage scientifically proven vaccines. 

Even before the pandemic, Adam wrote to the CEOs of Google, Facebook, and Amazon to express concern over reports that their platforms were surfacing and recommending content with unfounded or debunked theories about immunizations and vaccinations, endangering public health. When the pandemic struck, Adam continued to be the leading voice on this issue, and has since sent other oversight letters to Facebook and Amazon raising concerns with their platforms spreading scientific misinformation. The scientific and medical communities are in overwhelming consensus that vaccines are both effective and safe, and the misinformation circulated on tech platforms poses a great risk to public health and undermines decades of scientific progress made towards eradicating serious diseases.

 

Securing Health Equity

As America confronts its legacy of racism and discrimination, we must recognize that in the field of health care, discrimination can be among the most pernicious because it is a matter of life and death. Adam believes we must apply a civil rights framework to health care, by ensuring that every patient receives equal care, regardless of the color of their skin, their ethnicity, or any other characteristic. Adam authored the Equal Health Care for All Act, which would establish an Office of Civil Rights and Health Equity within the Department of Health and Human Services, strengthening the existing Office of Civil Rights and create a private right of action for patients to bring suit in state or federal court for failure to provide equitable care.