‘Life or death,’ Murphy says of ACA vote
WASHINGTON — As they stare down the probable confirmation of a new conservative Supreme Court justice, Democrats are surging a new message to voters heading to the polls: a vote for Republicans is a vote against heath care.
The centerpiece of this message is a Supreme Court hearing on Nov. 10, just one week after the election, on the Affordable Care Act. The case brought by the Trump administration’s Department of Justice and 20-GOP led states hinges on whether the Obamacare mandate that Americans obtain health insurance is constitutional.
U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, DConn., predicted Tuesday that if a new justice is appointed before the election in time to hear the case, the ACA is as good as dismantled and warned the court might rehear the case to allow the participation of the new justice, if he or she is confirmed after the election. He spoke in apocalyptic terms about the impact of a conservative court on health care coverage during an ongoing pandemic.
“This is life or death,” he said. “That case calls for the entirety of the Affordable Care Act to be invalidated which means likely overnight 25 million people losing their health care.”
Not all legal experts agree that the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg ascertains the end of the Affordable Care Act. Some scholars believe the ACA’s mandate could be severed while keeping the rest of the law in tact. If the court hears the case with eight members, it could deadlock, leaving the law in place as litigation continues.
Republicans maintain that their push against the ACA is not about taking health care away from Americans but undoing a bad law.
“We’ve long believed that the individual mandate at the center of the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional,” Vice President Mike Pence said in an interview with CBS News Tuesday. “But make no mistake about it, the President has been very clear that we’re going to make sure that any American with pre-existing conditions continues to have coverage. The President is going to take action in the weeks ahead to ensure that and we’re going to continue to take our case to Capitol Hill to pass a new health care reform that will lower the cost of health insurance without growing the size of government.”
President Donald Trump has recently teased plans to announce new health care legislation before the election, but he has made such suggestions before and not revealed a bill.
The Democratic objective appears to be: protect the ACA and use the case and the confirmation battle to push Democratic and independent voters to the polls in the hopes of winning the White House and congressional majorities. That would allow them to advance a Democratic agenda and open the slimmest chance to delay the Supreme Court confirmation until a Democratic Senate takes over. That narrow possibility is eliminated if Trump wins a second term and Republicans win the Senate.
“My focus is on these next days and weeks, stopping this absolutely hypocritical treacherous crush to confirm a nominee against the dying wishes of Justice Ginsburg and the will of the American people, because the American people should have their voices heard in the election, and there should be nothing done before they vote,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn, a Senate Judiciary member, said Monday. “The election is going to determine a lot of the answers to all these questions. And that's my second focus — making sure that there's a Democratic president, and a Democratic majority of United States Senate.”
Gayle Alberda, assistant professor of politics at Fairfield University and former GOP campaign strategist, said Democratic messaging was an attempt to put health care “back in the limelight,” after polling showed it fell behind the economy as a motivating issue — a stronger issue for Trump.
“Unless we see another surge of the virus like we saw early spring, it’s not really in the minds of voters. That kind of messaging will help remind voters not only what was accomplished with the ACA, but what they could lose,” she said. “But I think it’s going to be hard.”
Over the weekend, former Vice President Joe Biden, who is challenging Trump and helped implement the ACA, said “health care hangs in the balance” with this election.
emilie.munson@hearstdc.com; Twitter: @emiliemunson