American voters made it 100% clear in 2018 that they will reject attempts by Republicans in Washington to recklessly undermine our current health care system. Even GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy was honest to his donors about how commanding of a factor health care was for Democrats’ historic 40 seat victory to take back the House.
But this week has shown Republicans failed to get the message. Republicans, led by President Trump, are once again making attacks on everyday Americans’ ability to afford quality health care their core message. That’s horrible for the real people whose health care is at risk, and, if recent history is any indicator, it’s not going to end well for Republicans desperately trying to hold onto their seats in 2020.
What Chairwoman Bustos is saying:
“Millions of hardworking families across America could see their health care costs explode because Washington Republicans sided with big insurance companies instead of everyday Americans. They simply cannot say they support protections for people with pre-existing conditions, lowering health care costs, or expanding access to care for more Americans, because they voted to destroy all of these things. Their actions speak much louder than their lies, and we will hold them accountable. Democrats won the House in 2018 by fighting to lower costs and make health care more accessible to all Americans, and that’s exactly how we will protect and expand our majority in 2020.”
What people are watching:
CNN Newsroom with Brianna Keilar
MSNBC Live with Stephanie Ruhle
CNN Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin
CNN Newsroom with Poppy Harlow and Jim Sciutto
What people are reading nationally:
Politico: Trump hands Democrats a gift with new effort to kill Obamacare
By Adam Cancryn and Burgess Everett
House and Senate Democrats on Tuesday seized on the Justice Department’s endorsement of a federal court ruling to eliminate Obamacare in its entirety, immediately renewing attacks on the GOP for trying to gut the law’s popular protections and rip health coverage from more than 20 million Americans. […]
“It’s disgusting. It’s horrible,” said Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, the No. 4 House Democrat. “It’s what they were trying to do during the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, it’s what Republicans were doing when they filed the lawsuit. The president’s been clear about his position the whole time.” […]
Trump deputy health secretary Eric Hargan dodged questions about the administration’s new legal stance during testimony Tuesday on the White House’s budget request, telling lawmakers that it’s up to the DOJ to set litigation strategy.
He added there are still months of legal battles ahead before anyone’s coverage is threatened. Still, neither the Trump administration nor Republicans in Congress have any ready replacement for Obamacare if it is ultimately wiped out.
The Hill: Surprise ObamaCare move puts GOP in bind
By Peter Sullivan
GOP lawmakers for the most part were reluctant to even talk about the Justice Department’s decision to call for all of ObamaCare to be struck down in a court filing. […]
Many Republican lawmakers declined to take a firm position on whether they support or oppose the Trump administration’s move, but their guarded responses illustrated the difficulty of the issue for them. […]
But if the entire law were struck down, it would eliminate protections in the law that forbid insurance companies from denying insurance to people with pre-existing conditions.
NY Times: Democrats Pivot Hard to Health Care After Trump Moves to Strike Down Affordable Care Act
By Robert Pear and Sheryl Gay Stolberg
”The Republicans did say during the campaign that they weren’t there to undermine the pre-existing condition benefit, and here they are, right now, saying they’re going to strip the whole Affordable Care Act as the law of the land,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California told reporters, just hours before Democrats were to unveil their own plan to lower costs and protect people with pre-existing conditions.
“This is actually an opportunity for us to speak to the American people with clarity,” Ms. Pelosi went on. “They say one thing and they do another. They say they’re going to protect pre-existing conditions as a benefit, and then they go to court to strip it and strip the whole bill.”
In 2018, Democrats campaigned — and won — on their pledge to keep the law’s protections for pre-existing medical conditions, and are planning to roll out their own health care agenda with much fanfare at a news conference on Tuesday afternoon. Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, promoted the plan on Tuesday morning, while also accusing Republicans of “launching an assault on health care in the United States of America.”
In its letter to the appeals court, the Justice Department said Monday that it was “not urging that any portion of the district court’s judgment be reversed.” In other words, it agrees with Judge O’Connor’s ruling.
But on Tuesday, after a closed-door meeting, Democrats were piling on. Representative Cheri Bustos of Illinois, who leads the Democrats’ campaign committee, was quick to note Republicans’ vote in January to back a lawsuit repealing the Affordable Care Act, saying “their actions speak much louder than their lies.”
CNN: Donald Trump just made sure health care will decide the 2020 election
By Chris Cillizza
On Monday night, the Trump administration announced that it now supports a ruling from a Texas judge that would invalidate the entire Affordable Care Act — aka Obamacare — a move that almost certainly will push the fight over how health care is delivered in this country to the Supreme Court.
That decision, which caught even many Trump allies by surprise, again thrusts the health care issue to the center of the political debate, and virtually ensures that the 2020 election — like the 2018, 2016, 2014, 2012 and 2010 elections before it — will turn on the ACA.
….Many of the provisions of the law that have long been the most popular — allowing kids to stay on their parents’ insurance through age 26, no discrimination by insurance companies because of a patient’s preexisting conditions — remain in effect. The least popular provision — the individual mandate that forced everyone in the country to have some sort of health care — was effectively eliminated by congressional Republicans (and Trump) in their 2017 tax law.
Trump has spent the entire first two years of his presidency playing to his hardcore base — and, seen through that lens, the decision to re-litigate the ACA fight makes some sense. But Trump won’t win a second term solely on the strength of his base. And by picking the Obamacare scab, Trump is energizing and inflaming Democrats and many independents. And that is a major political mistake.
Vox: The Trump administration wants all of Obamacare overturned by the courts
By Dylan Scott
The Justice Department had previously said that only the ACA’s prohibition on health insurers denying people coverage or charging people higher premiums based on their medical history should fall in the lawsuit being brought by 20 Republican-led states. But their latest brief removed that subtlety, saying that the entire law should go.
Legal experts dismiss the states’ argument as “absurd,” yet they have worried it could find a receptive audience among conservative jurists, given the prior success of anti-Obamacare lawsuits thought to be spurious that still found their way to the Supreme Court.
The argument has already won in the US district court in northern Texas, after all, though that decision is on hold pending appeal. […]
The Texas lawsuit is the most direct legal threat against the ACA. But the Trump administration has pursued a multi-pronged crusade against the law’s expansion of health coverage and its regulations barring discrimination against preexisting conditions. Trump supported the GOP plans in Congress to roll back Obamacare, projected to leave millions fewer Americans with health insurance and inflict deep cuts to Medicaid
By Isaac Stanley-Becker
In a significant shift, the Justice Department now says that it backs a full invalidation of the Affordable Care Act, the signature Obama-era health law. […]
The new position staked out by the Justice Department, which fully abandons the health law, brings the administration in line with the consortium of Republican-controlled states arguing that no portion of the measure is constitutionally sound. The U.S. House and a California-led coalition of Democratic states have intervened to ask that the law be upheld in its entirety. […]
Legal experts said the filing was more significant in demonstrating the administration’s anti-ACA zeal than in altering the course of ongoing litigation. […]
“The sheer irresponsibility of the notion that you would rip the Affordable Care Act out of the American health-care system without having any prospect for a transition plan, or much less a replacement, is extraordinary,” [Nicholas] Bagley said. “It’s breathtaking.”
NPR: Trump Administration Moves Forward in Attempt to Invalidate Affordable Care Act
By David Greene and Alison Kodjak
KODJAK: …This law touches every part of the health care system. It determines how Medicare pays doctors. It creates this Medicaid expansion, which many states have taken on, which has covered millions of lower-income people. It determines things like whether restaurants have to post nutrition information. It really – it sets up different health care delivery systems for hospitals. It really touches everything. And if the law were repealed wholesale, it would change – hospitals would have to come up with new payment systems. An entire section of the insurance industry would go away. It’s really pretty expansive.
GREENE: Any idea why President Trump and his administration would decide to do this now?
KODJAK: You know, I don’t really know why they would do this now. What became clear during the midterms was that the Affordable Care Act became pretty popular among voters – and especially things like the protections for people with pre-existing conditions are very, very popular. So politically, trying to take this law away and really upend the whole health care system could be pretty tricky and dangerous politically for the Trump administration and for Republicans who support this legal case.
CNBC: Health insurer stocks fall after Trump administration seeks overturn of Affordable Care Act
By Bertha Coombs
“Increased uncertainty around the outcome of pending court cases may impact rates,” said Dave Dillon, a fellow of the Society of Actuaries, adding ” If the markets are perceived as being more volatile… carriers could increase rates to help address these uncertainties.”
Repealing and replacing Obamacare was a key campaign promise by President Donald Trump, but the administration’s efforts to pass legislation came up short in 2017. […]
The party’s failed efforts to repeal the ACA in 2017 in many ways helped make health care a top concern for voters last year, leading to the Democrats winning a majority in the House of representatives.
“Be careful what you wish for, because I think people are really holding their federal and state policy makers accountable to improve the situation,” when it comes to health prices, said Hempstead.
What people are reading locally:
Philadelphia Inquirer: New Trump push to kill Obamacare puts health policy debate back in spotlight
By Jonathan Tamari
Democrats on Tuesday hoped to turn away from the special-counsel investigation into Russian election interference and back to the kitchen-table issues that powered their 2018 victories.
President Donald Trump offered a helping hand.
Changing course, his administration this week joined a legal push to strike down the Affordable Care Act, the health-care law commonly called Obamacare that has proved politically resilient.
The shift in strategy refocused attention on one of the defining policy differences of the last decade, and gave Democrats — including those running for president — an opening to move to more comfortable political terrain, as Trump and his allies continued to bludgeon their critics over Robert Mueller’s finding that the president did not conspire with Russia during his 2016 campaign.
Fox 2 Detroit: Rep. Elissa Slotkin has plan to improve Affordable Care Act
By Fox 2 Staff
Michigan Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin is playing a big part in that bill just mentioned that would improve the Affordable Care Act.
Right now the Donald Trump administration wants it struck down. Millions of Americans are enrolled in it, but are complain about the high cost. Slotkin ran with the platform of affordable health care for all and to include those with pre-existing conditions.
She is introducing the Health Care Affordability Act and she explains how it is different from the existing ACA.
“There are a lot of people with programs for the ACA but they have really high premiums and really high deductibles,” she said. “It helps do two things – one, make it more affordable and two, it helps protect people with pre-existing conditions. It says you will never spend more than 8.5 percent of your income on health care.
NJ.com: A new push to save Obamacare over Trump’s objections was just revealed, and these Jersey Dems are in the thick of it.
By Jonathan D. Salant
When Democratic challenger Andy Kim ousted a House Republican incumbent last fall, health care was a big reason.
Just last week at a town hall meeting in Cinnaminson, health care was the top issue on voters’ minds.
“Health care was central not only to the campaign but the reason why I got into this race,” said Kim, D-3rd Dist. “Health care is such a worry to so many people.”
Kim on Tuesday joined fellow New Jersey Democratic Reps. Frank Pallone Jr. and Tom Malinowski in introducing legislation to strengthen the Affordable Care Act. […]
Kim’s opponent last fall, incumbent Republican Tom MacArthur, played a major role in the House GOP effort to adopt an alternative that the Congressional Budget Office said it would leave 23 million more Americans uninsured and jeopardize coverage for those with pre-existing conditions such as cancer or diabetes.
Culpeper Star Exponent: Spanberger aims to protect people with pre-existing conditions
By Star Exponent Staff
To cut health-insurance premiums and protect Central Virginians with pre-existing conditions, U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger helped introduce legislation Tuesday to stabilize the Affordable Care Act. […]
“Right now, Central Virginians need certainty—not the threat of a hyper-partisan, misguided lawsuit undermining their affordable coverage,” Spanberger said. “… [T]his bill reiterates our commitment to fight for our neighbors—not fight for special interests or the whims of a particular political party.”
Las Vegas Review Journal: Trump looks again to kill Obamacare
By Debra Saunders
…Democrats, too, took up their familiar role: Defending former President Barack Obama’s signature health-care achievement from relentless Republican attacks. […]
Democrats pounced, accusing the administration of moving to get rid of protections for Americans with pre-existing conditions. […]
House Democrats, including Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev., introduced the Protecting Pre-Existing Conditions & Making Health Care More Affordable Act, a move planned earlier to coincide with the ninth anniversary of the signing of the act.
By Jessica Seaman
Under the Affordable Care Act, Colorado expanded Medicaid — the government health care program for low-income individuals — to more people. Since then, the state’s uninsured rate for low-income adults has tumbled 29 percentage points.
The federal law also prohibits people from being declined coverage or charged more because they have pre-existing health conditions. There are about 753,000 Coloradans with pre-existing conditions, about 22 percent of the state’s population, according to 2015 data from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
By The Salt Lake Tribune Staff
Tuesday was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s birthday. What may have been her favorite gift came from President Donald Trump by way of a court filing where the administration backed the complete elimination of the Affordable Care Act.
[…] “The Republicans did say during the campaign that they weren’t there to undermine the pre-existing condition benefit, and here they are, right now, saying they’re going to strip the whole Affordable Care Act as the law of the land,” Pelosi told reporters Tuesday. “This is actually an opportunity for us to speak to the American people with clarity.”