Jobless claims hit 26.5 million over the last five weeks, “wip[ing] out all the job gains” the U.S. has made since the Great Recession. Meanwhile, with record numbers of Americans out of work and millions losing their coverage in a public health crisis, the Trump administration has still not reversed its harmful decision to keep special enrollment in the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance marketplace closed — and Senate Republicans are unwilling to stand up to the administration.
Despite five weeks of spiking jobless numbers and Americans losing their health coverage in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic:
Republicans’ choice to make it more difficult for Americans scrambling to get health care right now is both wrong and deeply unpopular. Polling this month found that voters disapprove by a massive 20-point margin of Washington Republicans’ stance against reopening the federal exchange for millions of uninsured Americans, and new polling today shows Trump’s net approval on the issue of health care has plummeted 14 points in the last month.
One top reason behind the Trump administration’s decision to refuse to reopen ACA enrollment in the middle of an escalating pandemic has been “the president’s support for a federal lawsuit that would overturn the entire law” – a lawsuit that Senate Republicans enabled. Every single Republican incumbent and candidate has either voted to repeal the health care law or expressed support for tearing it down.
“Week after week, Senate Republicans are choosing to sit silently by as Trump puts his own political agenda over the health care of Americans,” said DSCC spokesperson Helen Kalla. “Republicans’ staunch refusal to make it easier for struggling Americans to obtain health care during a pandemic is callous and wrong — but we’d expect nothing less from the party that’s tried to rip away Americans’ health care for years.”
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