Rep. Janice D. Schakowsky

Maddy summaryThe Lowering Drug Costs for American Families Act expands Medicare's drug price negotiation program from 20 to 50 drugs, allowing the government to negotiate lower prices for these medications. It requires private health insurance plans and group health coverage to apply these negotiated prices to their members' cost-sharing for covered drugs, with plans able to opt out while publicly disclosing their decision. The bill also extends these negotiated prices to drugs covered by commercial insurance markets, not just Medicare. This would directly affect Medicare beneficiaries and people with private health insurance who take the negotiated drugs.

Maddy summaryThe Access to Infertility Treatment and Care Act would require most health insurance plans to cover infertility treatment (including assisted reproductive technology like IVF) and fertility preservation services for people undergoing medical treatments that might cause infertility, such as cancer therapies. It prohibits cost-sharing (like deductibles and copays) for these services that exceeds what's charged for similar medical services and applies to private insurance, federal employee health plans, TRICARE, veterans' benefits, and Medicaid programs. The bill also requires insurers to provide clear notice to plan members about these coverage requirements. This legislation aims to ensure infertility treatment is covered similarly to other medical conditions, as recognized by medical organizations.

Maddy summaryHR 4752 (the CHANGE Act of 2023) requires Medicare to include standardized cognitive impairment screening during annual wellness visits and initial preventive physical exams for beneficiaries starting in 2024. It mandates doctors use National Institute on Aging-approved tools to detect memory issues and document results in medical records. This directly affects Medicare patients aged 65+ and their healthcare providers, aiming to enable earlier Alzheimer’s diagnosis and care planning. The bill focuses on making routine screenings a standard part of Medicare-covered checkups, not on funding or new programs. It does not alter existing Medicare benefits but adds a specific screening requirement to two existing service categories.

Maddy summaryThe Social Security 2100 Act would significantly enhance Social Security benefits for millions of Americans by increasing monthly payments for retirees, disabled workers, widows/widowers, and children. Key provisions include raising the minimum benefit for long-term low earners, improving cost-of-living adjustments using a more accurate index, eliminating the 5-month waiting period for disability benefits, and extending child benefits to age 26. The bill also changes how Social Security taxes are calculated by applying them to income above $400,000 and establishes a unified Social Security Trust Fund to manage program finances. Most provisions would apply to benefits payable from 2025 through 2034, affecting all current and future Social Security beneficiaries.

Maddy summaryHR 4475, the Period PROUD Act of 2023, allocates $1.9 billion over four years (2025-2028) through the Social Services Block Grant Program to provide free menstrual products to low-income menstruating individuals. It requires states to distribute funds to qualified nonprofits for direct product distribution, community outreach, and improving access, while limiting administrative costs to 9% of funds. The bill mandates an evaluation by 2030 to assess health impacts and requires annual reports on program effectiveness. It also establishes best practices for schools on discussing menstruation and exempts funding from automatic budget cuts.

Maddy summaryThe Abortion Justice Act of 2023 would establish $350 million in federal grants to support abortion access, including coverage for transportation, lodging, childcare, and direct care services. It would require health care facilities receiving federal funds to provide abortion care and mandate comprehensive coverage for abortion services in all health insurance plans, including Medicaid, Medicare, and private insurance. The bill would also remove barriers for immigrants seeking abortion care, clarify privacy protections for reproductive health information under HIPAA, and prohibit immigration enforcement within 2,000 feet of health care facilities. These provisions would directly affect people seeking abortion care, health care providers, and immigrant communities across the United States.

Maddy summaryThis bill, the Public Servants Protection and Fairness Act of 2023, amends Social Security to better protect public servants who work in jobs not covered by Social Security (such as certain government positions). It creates a new formula for calculating retirement benefits that combines both covered and noncovered earnings, ensuring public servants receive the higher of two benefit calculations. The bill also provides an additional $150 monthly payment for certain public servants whose benefits were previously reduced by the windfall elimination provision. It improves Social Security account statements to clearly show noncovered earnings and requires a study of how state retirement plans handle these benefits. These changes will apply to benefits starting in 2025.

Maddy summaryThe LIFT the BAR Act removes barriers preventing lawfully present noncitizens from accessing federal benefits like food assistance, Medicaid, and school meals. It repeals specific 1996 welfare law provisions that excluded noncitizens and updates terminology to replace "alien" with "noncitizen" throughout federal law. The bill expands eligibility to include noncitizens in categories such as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients, individuals with special immigrant juvenile status, and those with pending U-visa applications. This change ensures more noncitizens lawfully present in the U.S. can access essential services without being denied based on immigration status.

Maddy summaryThe Leveling the Playing Field 2.0 Act (HR 3882) updates U.S. trade law to better address international trade practices that disadvantage American businesses. It establishes special rules for handling multiple investigations of the same merchandise (called "successive investigations"), requiring the Commerce Department to consider previous injury determinations when making new findings. The bill also creates mechanisms to address market distortions from foreign government subsidies, including currency undervaluation, and strengthens procedures to prevent duty evasion through certification requirements for importers. These changes primarily affect foreign exporters of goods subject to U.S. antidumping and countervailing duty investigations, as well as U.S. importers of those goods.

Maddy summaryHR 3926, the Protecting Our Widows and Widowers in Retirement Act (POWR Act), increases Social Security benefits for surviving spouses in households where both spouses earned retirement benefits. It changes the calculation so widows and widowers who worked and earned their own benefits will receive 75% of the sum of their own retirement benefit plus the deceased spouse’s primary benefit amount, rather than a fixed percentage. The bill also ensures Supplemental Security Income (SSI) eligibility and benefit amounts remain unaffected by these changes. The provisions apply to benefits payable after December 2023.