--- title: House Passes Bill to Help Disabled Save for Living Expenses description: The House passed a bill to allow the disabled to save money tax-free that was paid for by cutting Medicare payments for penis pumps. canonical: https://time.com/3616320/able-act-penis-pumps-medicare-disabled/ author: Alex Rogers article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-12-03T23:07:48.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T02:32:37.375Z article:section: Politics og:title: House Passes Bill to Help Disabled Save for Living Expenses og:description: The House passed a bill to allow the disabled to save money tax-free that was paid for by cutting Medicare payments for penis pumps. og:url: https://time.com/3616320/able-act-penis-pumps-medicare-disabled/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt778cb4d2ca8d39af/69876c89cd1bba17346f3ea3/john-boehner.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: John Boehner og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: House Passes Bill to Help Disabled Save for Living Expenses twitter:description: The House passed a bill to allow the disabled to save money tax-free that was paid for by cutting Medicare payments for penis pumps. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt778cb4d2ca8d39af/69876c89cd1bba17346f3ea3/john-boehner.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # House Passes Bill to Help Disabled Save for Living Expenses > Sponsored content. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. by [Alex Rogers](https://time.com/author/alex-rogers/) ## Alex Rogers Dec 3, 2014 11:07 PM UTC  House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio in Congress on Nov. 21, 2014 in Washington. House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio in Congress on Nov. 21, 2014 in Washington. J. Scott Applewhite—AP by [Alex Rogers](https://time.com/author/alex-rogers/) ## Alex Rogers Dec 3, 2014 11:07 PM UTC The House overwhelmingly passed a bill Wednesday that will help the disabled pay for a host of expenses—including education, housing, transportation, and health—by cutting Medicare payments for penis pumps. The bipartisan bill—known as the Achieving a Better Life Experience, or ABLE Act—would help the severely disabled establish tax-advantaged savings accounts so they could pocket tax-free savings to cover various qualified expenses. That would allow the disabled to qualify for means-tested benefit programs like Medicaid because much of their savings wouldn’t be included. The $2.1 billion bill’s largest offset is ending Medicare coverage of vacuum erection systems, or penis pumps, which the Congressional Budget Office estimates would save $444 million. A [government report ](https://oig.hhs.gov/oas/reports/region7/71205024.pdf)last year found that Medicare paid more than twice as much for retail for the pumps. The bill has wide support in the House and Senate — the largest of any other bill this session, supporters noted — and passed 404-17 on Wednesday. Supporters have been pushing the bill since it was first introduced in 2006 and marked it as a huge victory for the disability community. Washington Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a member of the House GOP leadership team, said that the ABLE Act could help individuals like her son Cole, who was born in 2007 with Down syndrome and joined his mother on the floor for the vote. “We were told don’t put any assets in his name because it may disqualify him for programs that he may need in the future,” McMorris Rodgers told TIME. “And it just seems wrong to me.” “And I think that the ABLE Act is going to help fix that,” she added. “It’s going to help create a way for families to save money \[and\] set money aside to cover qualified expenses. It can go to education, transportation, housing—those are the benefits that would allow our son potentially to live independently and to hopefully work.” A companion bill in the Senate is expected to pass. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3616320/able-act-penis-pumps-medicare-disabled/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3616320/able-act-penis-pumps-medicare-disabled/"},"headline":"House Passes Bill to Help Disabled Save for Living Expenses","datePublished":"2014-12-03T23:07:48.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T02:32:37.375Z","description":"New program would allow the disabled to create tax-free savings accounts","url":"https://time.com/3616320/able-act-penis-pumps-medicare-disabled/","keywords":["Congress","disability"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt778cb4d2ca8d39af/69876c89cd1bba17346f3ea3/john-boehner.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alex Rogers","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alex-rogers/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt778cb4d2ca8d39af/69876c89cd1bba17346f3ea3/john-boehner.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"John Boehner","caption":"John Boehner","creditText":"J. 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