NEWS RELEASE
Admiral Joe Sestak Discusses Support for American Families & Their Health Care
Sestak Continues to Walk in the Shoes of Other Pennsylvanians
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For more information contact:
Danielle Lynch
610-505-5861
[email protected]
March 23, 2015
LIGONIER, PA – Admiral Joe Sestak discussed his support for Pennsylvanian families,
their health care and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on the fifth anniversary of the law’s
enactment Monday and then walked 11 miles through Westmoreland County.
Joe discussing health care security at an event in Ligonier, PA.
Earlier this month, Joe began his walk on the New Jersey border in Philadelphia
and will end it 422 miles later when he arrives at the border with Ohio. When Joe kicked
off his campaign, he said America is about “We the People,” and that — as Scout recalls
in To Kill a Mockingbird — “You never really know a man until you stand in his shoes
and walk around in them.” Therefore, over the next week, Joe will walk in the shoes of
Pennsylvanians he meets along his walk.
Joe entered politics because his own daughter had brain cancer. He was elected to
Congress in a Republican district and he worked for health security for all families – not
just his own. Joe championed the ACA, the most significant health care reform
legislation in over a decade ensuring access to affordable, quality health care for all
Americans, and making health insurance more affordable for individuals and small
businesses that have it by establishing a fair, competitive marketplace for health
insurance. The ACA ensured all Americans, including nearly 8 million uninsured rural
Americans under the age of 65, got access to affordable health care services such as
1 blood pressure and cholesterol screenings, mammograms, wellness visits, diabetes and
colorectal cancer screenings.
In Pennsylvania, the ACA has helped 700,000 Pennsylvanian children with preexisting conditions. It has allowed young adults to stay on their parents’ health insurance
until the age of 26. Northwestern Pennsylvania—including Westmoreland and Allegheny
counties—was listed as the top second least expensive health insurance market in
America last year.
The ACA has helped rein in costs. In the four years since the ACA was passed,
the per capita cost of health care rose at half the rate of the preceding eight years, at 3
percent compared to over 6 percent. That’s the slowest cost increase in 50 years.
Average premiums in the health care exchanges are 4 percent lower than average
premiums for similar employer-sponsored coverage. Plans offered through the Small
Business Health Options Program (SHOP) exchanges have premiums 7 percent less
expensive than plans sold off the marketplace.
The ACA also has helped senior citizens. Through rebates and discounts to close
the “donut hole” gap in Medicare prescription drug coverage, over 8 million seniors and
people with disabilities have saved $12 billion since 2010 – that’s an average of $1,500
per person. For seniors on a fixed income, every dollar of these extra savings has
meaning. The ACA also has added 13 years to the life of the Medicare trust fund, which
will now be solvent through 2030 compared to the 2017 estimate before the ACA was
passed. Medicare has a new lease on life because the ACA has kept costs down.
Reducing the number of uninsured Americans is crucial because the cost to our
economy of underinsurance and the uninsured is estimated by the Institute of Medicine to
be between $65 and $130 billion annually. According to estimates from Gallup, the
Urban Institute, and RAND Corp., somewhere between 8 million and 11 million people
gained coverage from the end of summer 2013 through the end of spring 2014, far
surpassing Congressional Budget Office enrollment forecasts. As a result, the uninsured
rate has fallen from roughly 20 percent to about 14 percent. That means that roughly one
in four people who were uninsured before the first enrollment period now have coverage,
with untapped potential still remaining.
Additionally, the ACA has helped women. It provides free preventive screenings
for women; increases services such as pre-natal care for pregnant women; and ensures
women with pre-existing conditions are not denied coverage. In addition to helping
women through his vote on the ACA, Joe also co-sponsored and passed legislation
requiring health plans to cover a minimum hospital stay of two days for mastectomies
and other breast cancer treatments.
Sen. Toomey, R-Pa., on the other hand, may say that he cares about
Pennsylvanians’ health care but he then votes the opposite way back in Washington, D.C.
He has supported nearly 30 bills that would dismantle the ACA. When Sen. Toomey was
a Congressman from 1999-2005, he did nothing to help 160 Pennsylvanians who were
losing their health insurance daily.
In a nutshell, Toomey wants to repeal all the progress our nation has made
through health care reform in the ACA. Toomey has voted to end preventive screenings
that are offered to senior citizens and women through the ACA. The ACA also has
reduced the health care workforce shortage by providing incentives to doctors that work
in rural communities, such as scholarships, loan repayments, and Medicare payment
2 incentives.
Joe’s campaign is about accountable leadership that serves “We the People.” He
believes the biggest deficit in America today is the “trust deficit” and is running to restore
Americans’ lost trust in their political leaders by being accountable to serve those whose
shoes public servants should be walking in.
That is why Joe looks forward to walking alongside Pennsylvanians as he works
to restore the American Dream. There are too many in the U.S. Senate who believe you
are on your own, and our present Senator—who votes against veterans, women, senior
citizens, and our children, as well as small business owners on a consistent basis—is not
the answer for restoring the American Dream.
“We must restore trust in our leaders,” Joe said. “Now more than ever, the
governmental leaders’ role must be accountability for restoring the alliance of rugged
individualism and common enterprise so that ‘We the People’ can take back the Dream.”
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Born and raised in Delaware County, former 3-star Admiral Joe Sestak served in the
Navy for 31 years. He served as a Congressman for Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional
District from 2007-2011. As a Congressman, Joe served on both the Armed Services and
Education & Labor Committees, and was Vice Chairman of the Small Business
Committee. According to the office of the House Historian, Joe is the highest-ranking
former military officer ever to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives. As an
Admiral, he led a series of operational commands at sea, including Commander of an
aircraft carrier battle group of 30 U.S. and allied ships with over 15,000 sailors and 100
aircraft that conducted operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. After 9/11, Joe was the first
Director of “Deep Blue,” the Navy’s anti-terrorism unit that established strategic and
operations policies for the “Global War on Terrorism.” He served as President
Clinton’s Director for Defense Policy at the National Security Council in the White
House, and also as the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations responsible for development of
the Navy’s five-year $350 billion warfare requirements. He holds a Ph.D. in Political
Economy and Government from Harvard University. Joe most recently taught courses
on Ethical Leadership and on Restoring the American Dream at Carnegie Mellon
University and Cheyney University, and was the General Omar N. Bradley Chair in
Strategic Leadership, a joint faculty appointment at the United States Army War College,
Dickinson College, and the Penn State University Dickinson School of Law and School of
International Affairs. He also remains active in foreign affairs, education, disaster
response, small businesses, energy and the environment, and health care, among other
issues, through a variety of non-profits and other organizations, including the U.S
Department of State.
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