Nearly 15 years after it was passed, the Affordable Care Act is popular with Americans, with a January poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation showing 64% of adults have a favorable view of the law.

Some provisions of the law are particularly popular, with the Kaiser Foundation reporting that 67% of people polled in February 2024 supporting the rule that prohibits denial of coverage because of preexisting health conditions.

President Donald Trump is a longtime critic of the ACA and has proposed replacing it with a different law, though he has not offered any specific proposal.

It makes sense for Pennsylvania to make sure its residents still are protected by rules that have proved enduringly popular, and a state House committee approved a series of bills to do just that.

The four bills would allow parents to keep adult children on a parent’s health insurance policy until age 26, prohibit health insurers from imposing lifetime or annual dollar limits on essential health benefits, prohibit health insurance policies from imposing preexisting conditions exclusions and require health insurance policies to provide coverage of preventive health care services.

The Kaiser Foundation reported between 51% and 67% approve of those requirements in the ACA.

No matter what happens at the federal level, having those minimum requirements in Pennsylvania would protect residents and ensure more people have access to health care.

We urge all of our state representatives and senators to vote in favor of the bills.

— JK