Republican Lawsuit to End Pre-Existing Condition Protections “Huge Vulnerability” for GOP in Key Senate Races

With a decision expected any day in the reckless GOP lawsuit to end protections for pre-existing conditions and send health care costs soaring, the New York Times looks at how Republicans’ efforts to take away health care from millions of Americans could drag down vulnerable incumbents in key Senate battlegrounds next year.

Health care “registers as a top priority for voters in poll after poll,” and every Republican Senator up for re-election next year has had a hand in their party’s harmful efforts to gut the protections their constituents rely on. Now, instead of doing anything to stop the dangerous lawsuit they helped bring about as part of their corporate tax giveaway, vulnerable Senate Republicans have twisted themselves into knots rather than take a stand against it — even though they know the lawsuit is so toxic that they’re now trying to hide its consequences “until after the 2020 election.”

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

New York Times: How Pending Decision on Obamacare Could Upend 2020 Campaign

By Abby Goodnough

October 18, 2019

Key Points:

• A federal appeals court in New Orleans is preparing a ruling on the Affordable Care Act that could put the law’s future front and center in the presidential race… reigniting the health care-driven worries that helped Democrats win back the House last year.

• The law’s most popular provision is protections for people with pre-existing medical conditions, but it includes much more, such as health insurance exchanges where people can buy private coverage with subsidies, an expansion of Medicaid and requirements for what insurance must cover, from emergency services to prescription drugs.

• A ruling that upheld his decision in full, or even one that said the mandate and pre-existing condition protections had to go, would send shock waves through the health care and political systems. Either outcome would probably play into Democratic hands, especially in contests against vulnerable Republicans like Senators Martha McSally of Arizona, Cory Gardner of Colorado, Susan Collins of Maine and Thom Tillis of North Carolina.

• Mr. Trump is in a box on health care, the issue that registers as a top priority for voters in poll after poll.

• Public support for the health law remains high, driven in part by swing voters. And few Americans believe Mr. Trump will offer details of a new health care plan before the end of the year, according to a Kaiser poll released this week. They also doubt any plan he releases would offer “better care at lower costs,” as he has promised.

Read the full story here.