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Republican Dept of Justice Now Wants to Kill the Entire Affordable Care Act Including Pre-Existing Conditions
Smart Dissent has posted more than 20 times on Republican efforts to eliminate healthcare coverage for as many people as possible, knowing killing people. Following the GOP legislative failures to kill people via repeal of the ACA, we've seen dozens of administration quiet ways the Trump admin has gutted the program, costing Americans everything.
Last week we saw it all clear as day again as the Republican-run Department of Justice is refusing to fight lawsuits against the ACA, telling us all yet again that Republicans want to eliminate healthcare coverage to save the wealthy money and kill you.
The Trump administration wants the federal courts to overturn the Affordable Care Act in its entirety, an escalation of its legal assault against the health care law.
.... administration supports a recent district court decision that invalidated all of Obamacare. So it is now the official position of Trump’s administration that all of the ACA — the private insurance markets that cover 15 million Americans, the Medicaid expansion that covers another 15 million, and the protections for people with preexisting conditions and other regulations — should be nullified.
The Justice Department now says the courts should strike down the entire Affordable Care Act — not just its protections for pre-existing conditions. The department signaled its new, broader position in a legal filing Monday [3/26/19], part of a lawsuit challenging the law's individual insurance mandate.
This is incredibly cruel and matters in a grave way:
A ruling striking down the entire ACA would upend major parts of the health care system. Millions of people would lose their health care coverage, and a host of seemingly unrelated policies — including new experiments in how Medicare pays for care and an entire class of prescription drugs — would also go out the window.
The case is pending before the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals — the most conservative appeals court in the country. From there it would go to the Supreme Court.
The harm Republicans are causing to tens of millions of Americans is already very real and this new effort should lead to them being swept from office in 2020.
Though repeal failed, the administration has used its regulatory leeway to promote insurance plans that are not required to comply with the ACA’s preexisting conditions rules. Trump officials have also allowed states to impose Medicaid work requirements on people who were covered by Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, leading to tens of thousands being forced off their benefits so far.
As the Trump administration has implemented this agenda, the uninsured rate has started rising after it had fallen to historic lows by the end of the Obama administration.
Now the Trump administration is asking the federal courts to go even further than before and invalidate the entire law.
Sources:
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/3/25/18281788/doj-obamacare-unconstitutional-trump