I've teamed up with friends for this final pre-election reminder of what the Republican healthcare agenda is really all about.
By Andrew Sprung, David Anderson and Louise Norris
On November 10, the Trump administration will ask the Supreme Court in oral argument to declare the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional – and nullify the law in the midst of a pandemic, uninsuring an estimated 23 million people. As Republicans rushed to confirm the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell asserted that “no one believes” the Court will strike down the law – implying, as many hard-pressed Republican incumbents have also implied, that Republicans have no wish to do so.
But ACA repeal has been Republican policy since President Obama signed the bill into law in March 2010. In 2017, a Republican House and Congress came within a whisker of repealing the ACA’s core programs, and 90% of Republicans in Congress voted for repeal. Where would be now if they had succeeded? How many more Americans would be uninsured, and what options would be available to the millions who have lost job-based coverage since the pandemic reached our shores?
