If Tipton’s lawsuit succeeds, health care and prescription drug prices will go through the roof as 305,100 Coloradans with pre-existing conditions in his district would lose protections
Yesterday, the health care repeal lawsuit Congressman Tipton voted to support took a major step forward. While all of Washington was focused on other things, the Trump Administration filed a motion in court to repeal the ENTIRE Affordable Care Act.
If the lawsuit is successful, the impact would be devastating for millions of hardworking Americans and seniors – exploding the cost of prescription drugs, implementing an age tax on older Americans, reopening the Medicare donut hole, and allowing insurance companies to charge women more than men. It would mean the end of protections for people with pre-existing conditions, and the end of requirements that health insurance includes essential coverage, like mental health, maternity and pediatric care.
“Congressman Tipton voted to raise health care costs, strip protections for people with pre-existing conditions and let insurance companies charge women and older Americans significantly more for their health coverage,” said DCCC Spokesperson Brooke Goren. “Rather than working across the aisle to improve our health care system, Congressman Tipton voted to back a lawsuit that will raise health care costs and prescription drug prices across the board for virtually all Americans.”
Back in January, with the White House signaling that they would not uphold the law of the land by defending against this lawsuit, the Democratic Majority voted to formally join the opposition to the lawsuit. Putting big insurance companies’ interests ahead of his constituents, Congressman Tipton voted no.
Below is a New York Times story outlining the Trump Administration’s legal filing to strip all protections from the Affordable Care Act.
NYTimes: Trump Administration Files Formal Request to Strike Down All of Obamacare
By Jan Hoffman and Abby Goodnough
May 1, 2019
The Trump administration formally declared its opposition to the entire
Affordable Care Act on Wednesday, arguing in a federal appeals court filing
that the signature Obama-era legislation was unconstitutional and should be
struck down.
Such a decision could end health insurance for some 21 million Americans and
affect many millions more who benefit from the law’s protections for people
with pre-existing medical conditions and required coverage for pregnancy,
prescription drugs and mental health.
In filing the brief, the administration abandoned an earlier position — that
some portions of the law, including the provision allowing states to expand
their Medicaid programs, should stand. The switch, which the administration
disclosed in late March, has confounded many people in Washington, even within
the Republican Party, who came to realize that health insurance and a
commitment to protecting the A.C.A. were among the main issues that propelled
Democrats to a majority in the House of Representatives last fall.
The filing was made in a case challenging the law brought by Ken Paxton, the
attorney general of Texas, and 17 other Republican-led states. In December, a
federal judge from the Northern District of Texas, Reed O’Connor, ruled that
the law was unconstitutional.
A group of 21 Democratic-led states, headed by California, immediately
appealed, and the case is now before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New
Orleans. The House of Representatives has joined the case as well to defend the
law.
Democrats wasted no time responding to the filing Wednesday. Xavier Becerra,
the attorney general of California, a Democrat, said: “The Trump administration
chose to abandon ship in defending our national health care law and the
hundreds of millions of Americans who depend on it for their medical care. Our
legal coalition will vigorously defend the law and the Americans President
Trump has abandoned.”
The government’s brief did not shed light on why it had altered its earlier
position, referring only to “further consideration and review of the district
court’s opinion.”
Oral arguments in the appeals court are expected in July, with a possible
decision by the end of the year, as the 2020 presidential campaign gets going
in earnest. Whichever side loses is expected to appeal to the Supreme Court.
The Justice Department’s request to expedite oral arguments, granted last
month, suggests that the administration is eager for a final ruling. In its
application, it said that “prompt resolution of this case will help reduce
uncertainty in the health care sector, and other areas affected by the
Affordable Care Act.”
Democrats, seizing on the health law’s popularity and its decisive role in
their winning the House last fall, are already using the case as a cudgel
against President Trump as his re-election campaign gets started. The law’s
guarantee of coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions, in
particular, remains very popular with voters in both parties as well as
independents.
But Mr. Trump has appeared undaunted, tweeting in April that “Republicans will
always support Pre-Existing Conditions” and that a replacement plan “will be on
full display during the Election as a much better & less expensive
alternative to Obamacare.”
Instead of providing specifics, though, Mr. Trump, members of his
administration and other Republicans have focused on attacking the Medicare for
All plans that some Democratic presidential candidates have sponsored or
endorsed as a dangerous far-left idea that would, as Mr. Trump tweeted, cause
millions of Americans “to lose their beloved private health insurance.”
As the administration and Texas noted in their briefs, Judge O’Connor’s ruling
turned on the law’s requirement that most people have health coverage or be
subject to a tax penalty.
But in the 2017 tax legislation, Congress reduced that penalty to zero,
effectively eliminating it. Judge O’Connor, the plaintiff states, and now the
Trump administration reasoned that, like a house of cards, when the tax penalty
fell, the so-called individual mandate became unconstitutional and
unenforceable. Therefore, the entire law had to fall as well.
Mr. Paxton, the Texas attorney general, whose office also filed a brief on
Wednesday, said: “Congress meant for the individual mandate to be the
centerpiece of Obamacare. Without the constitutional justification for the
centerpiece, the law must go down.”
Whether that position will survive judicial scrutiny is another question.
Nicholas Bagley, who teaches health law at the University of Michigan Law
School, noted that only two lawyers signed the brief. That is highly unusual in
a case with such a high profile, he said.
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“This is a testament to the outrageousness of the Justice Department position,
that no reasonable argument could be made in the statute’s defense,” Mr. Bagley
said. “It is a truly indefensible position. This is just partisan hardball.”
Many legal scholars have also said that even before appellate judges wade into
the more obscure pools of legal reasoning, they could reach a decision by
addressing the question of congressional intent. If Congress had meant the
erasure of the tax penalty to wipe out the entire act, such an argument goes,
it would have said so.
If the Fifth Circuit overturns the O’Connor decision, there is no guarantee
that the Supreme Court would take an appeal. The court has ruled on two earlier
A.C.A. challenges, finding in favor of the act, although narrowing it.
Of course, the composition of the Supreme Court has since changed.
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