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“Under a New Microscope”: GOP Attacks on Health Care Continue in Public Health Crisis, No Plan to Replace Health Care Law

Top Republican Donor Admits Health Care “a Massive Political Liability in the Fall”

A series of new reports put the GOP’s continued attacks on health care “under a new microscope” as Republicans continue to target pre-existing conditions coverage protections and other benefits even in the middle of an escalating public health crisis. Combined with an ongoing political crusade to “terminate” the Affordable Care Act through the courts and an irresponsible decision to refuse to reopen health insurance enrollment in the Affordable Care Act’s federal marketplace, health care is becoming an even more significant vulnerability for Republicans in the 2020 election.

  • NBC News: “Health care was already a vulnerability for President Donald Trump before the coronavirus pandemic hit. Now his lack of a plan to fix the system is coming under a new microscope as the crisis costs many Americans their coverage and overwhelms providers.”
  • CNN: “Trump’s continued support for a GOP lawsuit to dismantle Obamacare, with no replacement proposal in sight, is added fodder for Democrats making the case that current crisis is inextricably tied to pre-existing failures.”
  • AP: “Democrats were always going to focus on health care after the issue helped them retake control of the House in 2018. But the coronavirus pandemic has added new urgency to the push… as hospitals struggle to cope with surging coronavirus cases, few issues may feel as tangible to voters as health care.”

Every single Republican incumbent and candidate has either voted to repeal the health care law or expressed support for tearing it down. Not one has taken meaningful action to stop the Republican lawsuit against the ACA. 

In a sign of growing GOP concerns, one top Republican donor even admitted that the party’s lack of a plan to help the rising number of uninsured Americans “seems to be a blind spot” because health care “could be a massive political liability in the fall” and could prove to be Trump’s “Achilles’ heel in November.”

“With their lawsuit to eliminate coverage protections for pre-existing conditions and other benefits headed to the Supreme Court next month, Republicans are facing more scrutiny for doubling down on their unpopular repeal agenda as this public health crisis grows,” said DSCC spokesperson Stewart Boss. “Even GOP allies are admitting the party’s lack of any real plan beyond dismantling the health care law and gutting its protections is toxic, and making it harder for millions of Americans to get coverage in the middle of an escalating pandemic will only raise more concerns for voters.”

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

NBC News: ‘His Achilles’ heel’: Coronavirus crisis highlights Trump’s lack of health care plan

The president remains committed to eliminating Obamacare as some allies worry that his lack of a replacement vision will damage him in the fall election.

By Sahil Kapur

April 6, 2020

Key Points:

  • Health care was already a vulnerability for President Donald Trump before the coronavirus pandemic hit. Now his lack of a plan to fix the system is coming under a new microscope as the crisis costs many Americans their coverage and overwhelms providers.
  • The clarity in Trump’s health care vision begins and ends with repealing the Affordable Care Act, or ACA, also known as Obamacare. His budget proposals would strip away funding for the law, and he has endorsed a lawsuit to wipe it off the books. But the president hasn’t thrown his weight behind a replacement bill or even an outline, and he has rejected calls to reopen Obamacare for enrollment during the current crisis.
  • Some [Trump] allies worry that with millions of newly unemployed Americans poised to lose coverage during a public health crisis, Trump’s lack of a plan for the needy will be a political liability in his re-election bid.
  • “Not having a plan for the rising uninsured yet seems to be a blind spot,” Dan Eberhart, an oil executive and Trump donor, told NBC News. “The Democrats took the House in the 2018 midterms largely by having better answers on health care, so I think this could be a massive political liability in the fall… this could prove to be his Achilles’ heel in November,” he said.
  • The virus outbreak catches Trump in a bind, caught between fulfilling a 2016 campaign promise and the unpopular real-world consequences of ending ACA subsidies and protections that have become more salient for voters as the law faces credible threat of termination.
  • The president has rejected that call [to reopen Obamacare for enrollment]. A former Department of Health and Human Services official close to the White House said the administration fears that such a move would undercut its push to overturn the ACA in court.
  • Trump offers no details on a replacement plan on his campaign website or on WhiteHouse.gov, where the health care section argues that Obamacare is “hurting American families, farmers, and small businesses” and calls for a replacement with lower costs and more competition without explaining how such a system would work.
  • Even before the coronavirus emergency, health care was a top concern for voters, and Trump was faring poorly. That is continuing: A Washington Post-ABC News poll released last week showed Trump trailing Biden by 13 points on whom Americans trust more to handle health care…
  • Trump’s health care vision has been frozen since his repeal push failed in Congress and contributed to big 2018 victories for Democrats, who told horror stories about how his plans would harm sick people. Exit polls in the midterm election showed that health care was the No. 1 issue, and voters who cited it supported Democratic candidates by 75 percent to 23 percent.
  • He has since spoken warmly about the so-called Graham-Cassidy plan to roll back the ACA and give each state a batch of money to set up its own system. But with a divided Congress offering little hope of major health care legislation, Trump has turned his focus to finding new ways to weaken the ACA.
  • Eliminating the ACA risks stripping coverage for the roughly 20 million people who have gained it under the exchanges, as well as Medicaid expansion and rules letting young people up to age 26 stay on a parent’s plan. It would also allow insurers to return to the pre-ACA practice of denying coverage to sick people, charging them higher prices and refusing to pay for care in certain circumstances.
  • “Essentially, we’d have a lot more uninsured people,” said Sabrina Corlette, a research professor who is director of Georgetown University’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms.
  • Spiking uninsured rates would have consequences across the system, she said. Hospitals treating patients without coverage would be hit with uncompensated care costs and would try to pass them on to taxpayers or employer-based plans. Providers unable to recoup the expenses might have to shut down, and businesses that face surging insurance costs might have to throw employees off their plans. “It really could be a downward spiral,” Corlette said.

CNN: Trump’s fight against Obamacare continues despite coronavirus crisis

By Gregory Krieg and Tami Luhby, CNN

April 4, 2020

  • Even as the coronavirus pandemic rages, President Donald Trump and top Republicans are pressing forward with efforts to further undermine the nation’s already compromised health care system.
  • The rapid spread of Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, has put a new spotlight on the same frailties that Democrats successfully seized on in 2018 and are now moving to hammer away at again ahead of this fall’s general election.
  • Trump’s continued support for a GOP lawsuit to dismantle Obamacare, with no replacement proposal in sight, is added fodder for Democrats making the case that current crisis is inextricably tied to pre-existing failures. Those holes in the system will be felt more acutely by millions of Americans over the coming weeks and months, as they lose jobs — and the coverage attached to them.

  • Many of them will find that the safety net is fraying or nonexistent — in large part due to the actions, over a decade, of Republican officials. Some 14 states, all with either Republican governors or GOP-controlled state legislatures, have yet to take advantage of the Affordable Care Act provision expanding Medicaid to low-income adults…
  • The administration has also rejected calls to reopen enrollment on the Obamacare federal exchanges and allow uninsured Americans an opportunity to obtain coverage. The deadline to sign up for a 2020 policy was December 15 in most states. But advocates, insurers, Democrats and at least two Republican governors were hoping that, with hundreds of thousands already ill and the federal government taking extraordinary steps to aid a spiraling economy, the White House might relent.
  • Trump has been clear when questioned about his support for the lawsuit to end Obamacare, which the Supreme Court is expected to take up next term. During a coronavirus task force briefing at the White House on March 22, he rejected any suggestion that he would back off it in light of the growing public health and economic crises.
  • “We are running the bad health care (system) much better than it was ever run and we’re making it better, but it could be much better than it is,” Trump said of Obamacare, though his administration has yet to release a replacement plan. “And so what we want to do is terminate it.”
  • “It’s hard to imagine anything worse during the spread of a virus than taking away health care if people get sick. Republicans have never had a way of justifying their plans that take away health care but now that costs are, sadly, more real,” Jesse Ferguson, a Democratic strategist, told CNN on Friday.
  • Health was also the top issue for Democratic, independent and swing voters, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll from mid-February.
  • Meanwhile, the Affordable Care Act hit its highest favorability rating in the nearly 10 years that Kaiser has tracked opinions. Some 55% of the public viewed the law favorably and 37% held unfavorable views, the poll found.
  • Despite their differing scopes of their ambitions, Democratic leaders are broadly pushing in the same direction: toward expanding coverage through proactive public policy measures. That same pledge was the key to the party’s sweeping victories in the 2018 midterms.

Associated Press: Democrats elevate health care as virus-era campaign argument

By Alexandra Jaffe

April 3, 2020

Key Points:

  • WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats are zeroing in on health care as one of the few issues that might resonate among Americans who have largely shelved election-year politics as they focus on protecting their families from the spreading coronavirus.
  • Democrats were always going to focus on health care after the issue helped them retake control of the House in 2018. But the coronavirus pandemic has added new urgency to the push…
  • Democrats still hope to put Trump on defense on other issues, such as his handling of the economy and his overall leadership. But as hospitals struggle to cope with surging coronavirus cases, few issues may feel as tangible to voters as health care.
  • Trump and Vice President Mike Pence struggled to respond to questions during a press briefing this week about why the administration has refused to reopen healthcare.gov to allow all uninsured Americans to buy coverage through the government marketplace.
  • Down-ballot candidates also are elevating arguments centering on health care. In Texas, veteran and businesswoman MJ Hegar, who’s challenging Republican Sen. John Cornyn, said health care has always been a top issue for voters. But she said the coronavirus underscored how out of touch politicians in Washington are to the realities confronting average Americans.
  • “He (Cornyn) doesn’t understand how broken the health care system is because he’s been on government-provided health care his whole career,” she said… Hegar argued that Cornyn would continue to be haunted by his past efforts to gut the Affordable Care Act and what she characterized as the lackluster response from Republicans on Capitol Hill.

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