Tag: Obamacare

Supreme Court Rules for Insurers in $12 Billion Obamacare Case

New York Times logoIn an 8-to-1 decision, the court said the government must shield insurers from losses under the Affordable Care Act.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Monday that the federal government must live up to its promise to shield insurance companies from some of the risks they took in participating in the exchanges established by President Barack Obama’s health care law, the Affordable Care Act.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing for the majority in the 8-to-1 ruling, said the court’s decision vindicated “a principle as old as the nation itself: The government should honor its obligations.”

The health care law had promised the insurers that they would be protected, she wrote, and it did not matter that Congress later failed to appropriate money to cover the insurers’ shortfalls. Continue reading.

‘This is despicable’: Not even COVID-19 pandemic can halt Trump’s right-wing takeover of federal courts

AlterNet logoCritics warn the president’s latest nominees for lifetime appellate court positions are both committed to the “deadly agenda” of overturning the entire Affordable Care Act.

As the coronavirus pandemic continued to ravage the United States this week, killing and infecting thousands while shuttering schools and businesses, President Donald Trump proceeded with his ongoing effort to shift the federal judiciary to the far-right by announcing a fresh pair of lifetime nominees to appellate courts.

“Who is Justin Walker, Trump’s new D.C. Circuit nominee? He’s a Mitch McConnell and Brett Kavanaugh crony who is staunchly anti-healthcare.”
—Demand Justice

Continue reading.

How the Trump Administration’s Deregulation Agenda Has Worsened the Coronavirus Pandemic

Center for American Progress logoIn 2015, Donald Trump promised: “Everybody’s going to be taken care of much better than they’re taken care of now.” Yet, long before news of the COVID-19 outbreak reached the United States, the Trump administration had been dismantling policies and proposing new ones that have vastly exacerbated the coronavirus pandemic.

As the United States braces to combat a public health crisis and a severe economic downturn, it is important to note that the Trump administration’s policies have contributed to this crisis. Three years of deregulation under the Trump presidency and a botched response to the COVID-19 pandemic have in part spurred what may be one of the costliest public health crises in American history—both financially and in terms of human life. This column breaks down four of the Trump administration’s deregulatory actions that have worsened the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.

Dismantling the Affordable Care Act

More than 27 million Americans, about 9 percent of the U.S. population, have no health insurance coverage. Despite a yearslong decline in the number of uninsured Americans following the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Trump administration’s effective elimination of the law’s individual mandate, as well as other efforts to undermine comprehensive coverage, led to an increase in the uninsured rate for the first time in 10 years. At the same time, the administration has pushed to allow insurance companies to offer short-term plans with limited coverage, also known as junk plans. While these plans offer cheaper premiums, they provide limited benefits and few consumer protections; enrollees could potentially have massive bills for COVID-19 treatment. Continue reading.

Donald Trump Continue to Attack the ACA During COVID-19 Pandemic

At his press briefing this weekend, and one day ahead of the 10th anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, Trump doubled down on his lawsuit to repeal the entire law, despite the fact that the law has become one of the most critical tools in the fight against coronavirus.

FALSE CLAIMS:

Trump doubled down on his lawsuit to overturn the ACA and lied that he is putting great health care in its place — he has no plan. 

CNN’s Daniel Dale: “Noted that his administration supports a lawsuit to eradicate the Affordable Care Act, and asked if he’d reconsider given that people are losing jobs/need health care, Trump says what they’re doing is working to ‘get rid of the bad health care and put in a great health care.’”

Trump touted potential coronavirus treatments as being safe and effective, despite health experts warning that hasn’t been proven.

CNN’s Daniel Dale: “Trump on medications approved for other uses and now being tested for the coronavirus: ‘They’re not killing people. We’re not going to have that.’ Doctors warn that there CAN BE serious side effects to these drugs; they haven’t been proven safe and effective here; be careful.” Continue reading “Donald Trump Continue to Attack the ACA During COVID-19 Pandemic”

DNC on 10th Anniversary of the Affordable Care Act

DNC Chair Tom Perez released the following statement on the 10th anniversary of President Obama signing the Affordable Care Act into law:

“The world is in crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic is a sobering reminder of just how important health care is American families. Democrats understand that, which is why 10 years ago today, President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law. This landmark legislation represented the largest overhaul of our health care system in half a century and improved the lives of millions of Americans.

“Thanks to this law, more than 20 million Americans have gained coverage; the uninsured rate in the United States dropped to a record low; insurers cannot deny or drop coverage for people with preexisting conditions; young people can stay on their parents’ plans until they’re 26 years old; states have been able to expand Medicaid, offering care to millions more Americans; more than 55 million women have gained access to birth control with no co-pay; and insurers can no longer impose cruel annual and lifetime limits on the care you can receive. Continue reading “DNC on 10th Anniversary of the Affordable Care Act”

DFL Statement on the Supreme Court Hearing Another Challenge to the Affordable Care Act

SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA – Yesterday, the Supreme Court announced it would hear another lawsuit to overturn the Affordable Care Act. This is the latest in a long series of conservative legal attempts to eliminate the popular health care law, and the first to come before the Supreme Court with Justices Kavanaugh and Gorsuch on the bench.

If the Supreme Court overturns the Affordable Care Act, 266,000 Minnesotans would lose access to health insurance. Nationwide, nearly 20 million Americans could lose access to the care they depend on.

DFL Chairman Ken Martin released the following statement:

“Once again, the health care of tens of millions of Americans is on the chopping block thanks to President Trump and his Republican allies’ relentless assault on the Affordable Care Act. The Supreme Court hearing another Affordable Care Act case is dire news for Minnesotans everywhere because time and time again, conservative efforts to eliminate the popular health care law have come dangerously close to succeeding. Continue reading “DFL Statement on the Supreme Court Hearing Another Challenge to the Affordable Care Act”

House HHS Finance Division examines consequences Minnesotans face if Republican efforts to overturn ACA are successful

House DFL logoSAINT PAUL – The Affordable Care Act (ACA), signed into law in 2010, has helped thousands of Minnesotans gain access to the health care they need. Since his election, President Trump and his allies have worked to overturn the ACA, and filed a federal lawsuit that has put the law’s future in jeopardy. On Thursday, the Minnesota House Health and Human Services Finance Division discussed the impacts Minnesotans could face should the federal law be overturned.

“For decades, Minnesota has been a leader in ensuring people have access to the health care they need. But as a result of the Trump administration and their allies’ continued attacks on the ACA, many Minnesotans – especially those with low-incomes or preexisting conditions – are in jeopardy of losing the coverage they depend on,” said Rep. Tina Liebling (DFL – Rochester), who chairs the committee. “We have a responsibility to protect the progress we’ve made to ensure access to coverage for Minnesotans. Instead of going backwards, as Republicans would prefer, we should continue working to reduce prices, increase access, and deliver better health care outcomes.”

After Republicans in the U.S. Congress tried and failed to repeal the ACA, Trump allies filed a federal lawsuit, Texas v. Azar, seeking to overturn the ACA.  If the effort is successful and the law is struck down, there could be far-reaching consequences across the nation’s entire health care system, including impacts on Minnesotans.

Minnesota could lose as much as $2.8 billion in federal funding, including funding for MinnesotaCare and Medicaid expansion, premium tax credits for those who purchase coverage on the individual market, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and more. In 2018, approximately 210,000 low-income Minnesotans were covered under the ACA’s expansion of Medicaid (Medical Assistance).

Since enactment of the ACA, Minnesota has made great progress in reducing its uninsured rate, but President Trump and his allies’ efforts to gut or eliminate the law have reversed this trend. While Trump, Republican lawmakers, and their echo chamber have claimed that they will protect people with pre-existing conditions, they have offered no meaningful plan to do so, nor any plan to allow young people to remain on their parents’ coverage until age 26.

Other protections could also disappear, including essential health benefits like coverage for contraception, mental health, substance use disorder and maternity and newborn care, and the requirement that insurance companies spend a high portion of premiums on actual medical care.

House DFLers are committed to protecting key components of the ACA at the state level, including coverage for preexisting conditions, out-of-pocket maximums, and no-cost preventative care services. They are also working to pass long-overdue legislation to provide emergency insulin and reduce the cost of prescription drugs.

Fearful GOP Senators Drop Attacks On Obamacare

In 2014, Republican David Perdue ran for an open Senate seat in Georgia promising to “Repeal ObamaCare” and “replace it with more affordable free market solutions.”

Six years later, his campaign reelection site has removed all traces of that promise and says only that lawmakers must “finally get after the real drivers of spiraling health care costs.”

Perdue is not alone. A comparison of 2014 and 2020 campaign sites for Republicans in competitive Senate races finds that seven have made their original 2014 anti-Obamacare language disappear. Continue reading.

Trump administration to allow Medicaid block grants

States will have the ability to scale back Medicaid spending by converting part of their Medicaid funding into a block grant under a new Trump administration program announced Thursday.

A letter to state Medicaid directors outlines how states can undertake the drastic, controversial change that conservatives have eyed for years.

The move is likely to kick off a furious legal fight. Democrats have been arguing the administration doesn’t have the authority to approve such drastic changes, and Medicaid advocates argue the changes would hurt low-income people and invite states to cut costs and reduce coverage.  Continue reading.