Washington Republicans “Explicitly Arguing” to SCOTUS That “Pre-Existing Condition Rules Must Be Overturned”

Late last night, the Trump administration submitted its brief in support of the Republican-led lawsuit asking the Supreme Court to strike down the entire Affordable Care Act. The administration is “explicitly arguing” that the current protections for people with pre-existing conditions must be overturned.

“Republicans in the Senate have repeatedly voted to repeal and sabotage the health care law that guarantees protections for people with pre-existing conditions,” said DSCC spokesperson Stewart Boss. “When desperate politicians like Martha McSally are caught running false ads claiming to defend those life-saving coverage protections, voters will know that it’s GOP senators who are to blame for the fact that Republicans are literally telling the Supreme Court to tear those protections down.”

NBC News: Trump administration asks Supreme Court to strike down Obamacare amid pandemic, recession

• “The brief includes a section pointedly arguing that the Affordable Care Act’s pre-existing condition rules must be overturned as well. Those rules forbid insurers from turning away customers or charging them more on the basis of factors like age, gender and health status. The position contradicts Trump’s insistence that he will protect people with pre-existing conditions.”

Wall Street Journal: Trump Administration Asks Supreme Court to Invalidate Affordable Care Act

• “A decision invalidating the ACA would be a shock to the U.S. health system. It wouldn’t only end coverage for the 11.4 million people who signed up for insurance for this year, but also halt the expansion of Medicaid that covers more than 12 million people. Insurers would again be able to deny people health coverage or charge higher premiums to consumers with pre-existing conditions.”

Washington Post: Trump administration asks Supreme Court to strike down Obamacare

• “Trump has said he wants to protect health care coverage for Americans with preexisting conditions, which a White House spokesman reiterated Thursday night. But the administration has not presented any plan showing how it would accomplish that, and the Justice Department’s Thursday brief takes the opposite position.”

• “In the brief, Solicitor General Noel J. Francisco argues that all of the ACA should be struck down because one of its core provisions, the individual mandate, is unconstitutional, rendering the rest of the law invalid as well.”

• “Francisco argues that the individual mandate provision became unconstitutional when Congress reduced penalties to zero in 2017. Without any remaining tax penalty, Francisco argued, the provision could no longer be considered a constitutional use of Congress’s taxing power — the reason the Supreme Court upheld it in a previous challenge. He argued that the provisions protecting Americans with preexisting conditions or high-risk medical histories are ‘inseverable’ from the individual mandate, and therefore should be struck down with it.”

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