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Trump's DOJ Tells Federal Courts To Remove Healthcare Protections for Preexisting Conditions
Trump and Republicans have many ways to destroy Obamacare despite the failure to repeal it in the Senate in 2017. They eliminated the individual mandate in the 2017 tax scam that handed corporations and the wealthiest Americans billions of dollars. They have stripped reimbursements to insurers forcing them to leave the exchanges, ended marketing of the healthcare plans, and more.
The elimination of the individual mandate is causing the price of healthcare to skyrocket, making it unaffordable for millions. This is digusting and infuriating.
The premium for an average "benchmark" plan is 34% higher this year than in 2017. CBO expects premiums for the same set of plans to go up another 15% for 2019.... As a result, CBO bumped up its estimates of how many Americans will be uninsured....from 30 million to 34 million.... the magnitude of increases stems from the repeal of the ACA's individual mandate, the expansion of skimpy short-term plans, and the decision last year to cut off the law's cost-sharing payments.
BUT NOW IS THE BIGGEST SABOTAGE YET AND IT'S NOT GETTING ANY COVERAGE. TRUMP'S DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE LED BY JEFF SESSIONS IS TELLING THE FEDERAL COURTS TO RULE THE PRIMARY PARTS OF THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT ILLEGAL.
The Trump administration told a federal court on Thursday [June 7, 2018] that it would no longer defend crucial provisions of the Affordable Care Act that protect consumers with pre-existing medical conditions. Under those provisions of the law, insurance companies cannot deny coverage or charge higher rates to people with pre-existing conditions.
The Justice Department said the provisions were part of an unconstitutional scheme that required most Americans to carry health insurance. In a court case filed by Texas and 19 other states, the Justice Department said in a brief on Thursday that the requirement for people to have insurance — the individual mandate — was unconstitutional.
The Justice Department said that the protections for people with pre-existing conditions were inseparable from the individual mandate and must also be struck down.
Here's what this means:
If that argument is accepted by the federal court, it could eviscerate major parts of the Affordable Care Act that remain in place despite numerous attacks by Trump and his administration. Insurers could again deny people coverage because of their medical condition or history.
.... insurers could once again be able to flat-out deny Americans insurance based on their health status. No amount of federal subsidies would protect them. Medicaid expansion would remain, but the private insurance market would no longer guarantee coverage to every American.
The states' lawsuits have been in play for months and now Trump's federal government is cheering them on.
Trump lawyers are arguing that Obamacare’s most popular provisions should be totally eliminated — but the case behind them has not received much attention until now. There’s a good reason for that: Legal experts on the left and the right believe the arguments being made by Republican-led states are, on their face, absurd.
.... the lawsuit very well might not go anywhere. Legal scholars of all ideological stripes think it shouldn’t.
....several career federal attorneys withdrew from the case shortly before the Trump administration filed its brief, suggesting they were extraordinarily uncomfortable with the legal argument being presented
Brad Woodhouse, the director of the Protect Our Care Campaign, an advocacy group that supports the health law, said the Justice Department’s position threatened to “steal coverage from millions of Americans.” It is, he said, Mr. Trump’s “most dangerous sabotage effort yet.”
This is an incredibly stupid move by Trump and Sessions for two reasons: 1) It harms / kills millions of Americans over time; 2) There are elections coming up in November 2018 and voters will not stand for this.
The Trump administration handed Democrats a political gift by arguing in court that Obamacare’s most popular provisions are unconstitutional, just five months before a midterm election in which health care ranks as voters’ top issue.
Health care ranked as the top issue for voters in a a national NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released Thursday, and among those for whom it was the most important factor in their vote, a striking 67 percent prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress. A CBS News poll of 64 competitive House districts also found that health care is the top issue for voters, ahead of jobs and wages as well as immigration.
Many Democrats said health care is the GOP’s greatest political vulnerability in the November congressional elections and by siding with Texas in the court case Thursday night, Trump’s Justice Department poured gasoline on already burning fire.
Dozens of Democratic candidates challenging incumbent House Republicans have already made Obamacare, and the GOP’s efforts to repeal it, a central part of their campaigns.
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/07/us/politics/trump-affordable-care-act.html
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/6/8/17441512/obamacare-lawsuit-texas-trump