According to new numbers today from the U.S. Labor Department, unemployment insurance claims have risen again to just over 22 million over the past four weeks. But, despite the continuing rise in Americans who have lost their jobs because of this public health crisis, the Trump administration has still not reversed its harmful decision to keep special enrollment in the Affordable Care Act’s federal health insurance marketplace closed.
That policy choice to make it more difficult and more burdensome 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.
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.
Despite a month of spiking jobless numbers and millions of Americans losing their health coverage in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic:
“As jobless numbers have risen sharply each week and families across the country keep losing their health insurance, Republican senators have chosen to sit on the sidelines and enable the administration’s toxic health care agenda,” said DSCC spokesperson Stewart Boss. “Choosing to make it more difficult for millions of people to get critical health coverage in the middle of a pandemic for self-serving political gain is disgraceful and causing more harm every week this continues, but that’s par for the course for Republican politicians in Washington.”
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