WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), a member of the Senate Finance Health Care Subcommittee, released the following statement in response to a series of executive orders on health care announced Thursday.

“President Trump’s latest executive orders on health care are paper thin. They also run counter to the administration’s ongoing attempt to destroy the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and take away health insurance coverage from millions of Americans. Under the Affordable Care Act, patients with pre-existing conditions are protected from high out-of-pocket costs and cannot be denied coverage. Under the president’s plan, well, we don’t know because after all these years, he still does not have one.

“This is no plan. These are empty promises with no immediate or long-term plans of how to enact policies that can help people. The American people, especially our seniors, understand election-year stunts when they see them. This is a brazen misuse of taxpayer dollars and abuse of the public’s trust, and it doesn’t do a single thing today to lower prescription drug prices or hold pharmaceutical companies accountable for sky-high drug prices.

“Health care affects every single person in this country and impacts an outsized portion of our economy. Donald Trump cannot continue to try to take a wrecking ball to our health care system on the one hand while saying all is well on the other.”

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