As cases rise, White House seeks to scrap ‘Obamacare’
WASHINGTON (AP) — As coronavirus cases rise in more than half of the states, the Trump administration is urging the Supreme Court to overturn the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
The administration’s high court filing at 10:30 p.m. on Thursday came on the same day that the government reported that close
to half a million people who lost their health insurance amid the economic shutdown to slow the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 or COVID-19 have gotten coverage through
HealthCare.gov.
The administration’s legal brief made no mention of the virus. More than 20 million Americans could lose their health coverage and protections for people with pre-existing health conditions also would be put at risk if the court agrees with the administration.
Nothing will happen immediately. The case won’t be heard before the fall.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi blasted the administration’s latest move in a partisan battle over “Obamacare” that has stretched on for a full decade since the law’s passage in 2010.
Pelosi is planning a floor vote early next week on her own bill to expand the ACA, sweetening its health insurance subsidies so that more people will be covered.
“There is no legal justification and no moral excuse for the Trump administration’s disastrous efforts to take away Americans’ health care,” she said in a statement.
Anger over problems with “Obamacare” was once a winning issue for Republicans, helping them gain control of the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014. The politics of the issue, however, flipped after US President Donald Trump failed to deliver in 2017 on his vow to “repeal and replace” the health law and provide lower-cost coverage for everybody.
If the health insurance requirement is invalidated, “then it necessarily follows that the rest of the ACA must also fall,” Solicitor General Noel Francisco wrote Thursday.
It is the third time that the court is being asked to undo “Obamacare.” Two previous attempts had failed. At the White House on Friday, there was no turning back.
“A global pandemic does not change what Americans know — Obamacare has been an unlawful failure,” White House spokesman Judd Deere said Friday in a statement, adding that it limits choice and “forces Americans to purchase unaffordable plans.”