President Trump’s decision to call for ObamaCare’s complete dismantling in court is shining the spotlight on Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff who reportedly pushed for the action.
Mulvaney, a former member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, argued in favor of backing a lawsuit to nullify the Affordable Care Act during a White House meeting with other officials, according to two published reports.
The intervention in a case brought by attorneys general from more than a dozen GOP states has frustrated congressional Republicans by handing a new campaign argument to Democrats — just as that party was staggering from the end of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe.
President Trump on Wednesday defended his administration’s controversial decision to back a legal effort to strike down the entirety of former President Obama’s signature health care law.
The move has rattled congressional Republicans, introducing an issue that Democrats feel they can use in the 2020 election to win back the Senate majority and even expand their House majority.
But Trump on Wednesday showed no signs of backing down.
The Republican Party’s efforts to rip health care away from millions of families spelled doom for the GOP in the 2018 midterm. Yet somehow, Trump thinks it’s a good idea to try one more time — even as yet another poll indicates that Americans don’t want him to.
On Tuesday afternoon, less than 24 hours after his lawyers announced they wanted to completely eliminate the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Trump bragged that Republicans “will become ‘The Party of Health care!’”
But in a Monday court filing, Trump’s Department of Justice announced that it advocates striking down the entire ACA. If this happens and Trump gets his wish, 30 million people stand to lose access to health care. Millions more would lose protections for pre-existing conditions, one of the ACA’s most popular mandates. And 1.2 million people could lose their jobs.
The Trump administration’s surprising move to invalidate Obamacare on Monday came despite the opposition of two key Cabinet secretaries: Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Attorney General William Barr.
Driving the dramatic action were the administration’s domestic policy chief, Joe Grogan, and the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russ Vought, according to three sources with direct knowledge of the decision. Both are close allies of White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, who helped to engineer the move.
But Monday’s terse, two-sentence letter from the Department of Justice to a federal appeals court reversing the administration’s previous partial opposition to a lawsuit challenging the 2010 health care law, took many Republicans aback — in part because they see it as bringing high political risk for a party that has failed to unite behind an Obamacare alternative and which lost House seats in the 2018 midterms when Democrats made health care a focus of their attacks.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Monday announced that it is siding with a district court ruling that found the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional.
The move is an escalation of the Trump administration’s legal battle against the health care law.
The DOJ previously argued in court that the law’s pre-existing condition protections should be struck down. Now, the administration argues the entire law should be invalidated.
Take a break from Trump and hear from regular Americans about the real state of our Union. Watch the mother of a child with a pre-existing condition talk about the struggle to pay for her family’s health care as her son recovers from a brain tumor.
“Well, I’m worried about our whole family, honestly. … Medical bankruptcies are a reality and they were a much bigger reality before the Affordable Care Act.” – California resident
A new poll released today shows the impacts of Trump’s health care sabotage. Trump’s relentless campaign to undermine the Affordable Care Act has made health care less accessible and less affordable for millions of Americans across the country.
7 million more Americans are uninsured now than when Trump was elected.
Gallup: “The 2.8-percentage-point increase since that low represents a net increase of about seven million adults without health insurance. Nationwide, the uninsured rate climbed from 10.9% in the third and fourth quarters of 2016 to 12.2% by the final quarter of 2017; it has risen steadily each quarter since that time.”
The uninsured rate is now the highest its been in nearly 5 years.
Gallup: “The U.S. adult uninsured rate stood at 13.7% in the fourth quarter of 2018, according to Americans’ reports of their own health insurance coverage, its highest level since the first quarter of 2014.”
In response to new rules proposed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, DNC spokesperson Daniel Wessel released the following statement:
“The Trump administration is continuing its relentless campaign to make health care less accessible and less affordable for millions of Americans. These new rules would increase out-of-pocket costs, drive up premiums, and put health care out of reach for many Americans across the country.
“Voters made their voices heard in the midterm elections: They overwhelmingly oppose Trump and Republican sabotage. While this administration has not learned its lesson, Democrats will never stop fighting to ensure that health care is a right for all.” Continue reading “DNC on Trump’s Latest Health Care Sabotage”
DNC Women’s Media Director Elizabeth Renda released the following statement on the Trump administration’s new rule vastly expanding the number of employers that may refuse to cover workers’ birth control by citing religious or moral objections. The rule, which went into effect this morning, has already been temporarily blocked in 13 states and the District of Columbia by a U.S. district judge. A court in Pennsylvania is also already considering a request for injunction.
“The Trump administration’s new contraception rule is yet another attack on every woman’s right to make decisions about her own body with her doctor. This rule is unconstitutional, immoral, and shameful. This is just the latest move the Trump administration has made to turn its back on women, and it’s just another reason why Democrats are winning women’s votes by historic margins in the Trump era. Every woman deserves the fundamental right to make her own decisions about her reproductive health. Democrats will never stop fighting back against the Trump administration’s and Republicans’ ceaseless efforts to come between women and their doctors.”
Mem>A doctor in Milton, MA, wheels his patient into his office, February, 2018. Credit: Tlumaki, Getty Images
Conservative state officials, in conjunction with the Trump administration, have launched an all-out attack on health care in the United States. They have brought a suit to overturn the entirety of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which would have serious consequences for nearly every American who has health coverage, whether through their employer, the individual market, Medicare, or Medicaid. And they found a partisan judge who, last Friday, proved willing to ignore the rule of law and help them advance their political agenda through the courts.
For now, the ACA remains the law of the land. But if the partisan decision in Texas v. United States is upheld, the consequences could be devastating. The Urban Institute estimates that overturning the ACA would result in 17 million more Americans being uninsured in 2019—in addition to coverage reductions that would occur due to the elimination of the individual mandate penalty. Millions of American families could be left without access to health care—and without the financial safety and peace of mind that health insurance provides. Overturning the law would also have serious negative effects on public health and drug development and would shorten the life of the Medicare trust fund. Moreover, it would provide a major tax break to the wealthiest Americans, insurance companies, and drug manufacturers.
Supporters of the decision have talked about this as an effort to end “Obamacare,” which may cause some people to mistakenly believe it only affects those who obtain coverage through the individual marketplace. Nothing could be further from the truth: Virtually no American’s health care coverage would be safe from the effects of this decision. Here are just some of the impacts that this decision, if upheld, would have.
President Trump’s decision to call for ObamaCare’s complete dismantling in court is shining the spotlight on Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff who reportedly pushed for the action.
The Trump administration’s surprising move to 
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