The GOP’s viral obsession

There’s a pandemic going on, and a related economic cataclysm has rendered millions jobless and without employerprovided health insurance. So, of course, the Trump administration is doubling down on its attempt to rip up the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.

The administration last week submitted a Supreme Court brief arguing that the entire ACA should be thrown out because one part is allegedly unconstitutional. The administration joined with several Republican state attorneys general seeking to upend the law.

Putting aside the weakness of the legal argument — that Congress’ 2017 zeroing out of the tax penalty on the individual mandate automatically makes the law unconstitutional — the timing is repugnant.

Obamacare allows the freshly unemployed not only to hang onto coverage for a few months with expensive COBRA plans, but to sign up for coverage in state exchanges or through expanded Medicaid.

More significantly, the law blocks insurance companies from denying coverage to individuals with pre-existing conditions. As Joe Biden noted Thursday, coronavirus has all sorts of long-term symptoms just being identified — including possible strokes, heart attacks and other potentially perpetual ailments.

Absent Obamacare, any of these could now be considered “pre-existing conditions” leaving individuals either without coverage or forced to pay prohibitive premiums.

For a decade now, Republicans repeatedly sought to repeal Obamacare without offering a serious replacement — the last attempt so reckless that John McCain provided the deciding vote against it.

Biden rightly called this obsession a “heartless crusade.” It was always immoral. It is now also obscene.