Washington, DC—Despite the fact that millions of Americans have lost their jobs and their health insurance coverage as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, President Trump announced yesterday that he still plans to completely gut the Affordable Care Act. The Trump administration has no plan to ensure that the millions of hardworking families who will lose their health insurance coverage if the Affordable Care Act is no longer an option are able to see a doctor when they get sick.
“Hardworking families are sacrificing everything to do their part and stay home during this pandemic, while Trump is doing everything in his power to make it harder for them. It is reckless and absolutely unconscionable that when millions of people are losing their jobs and their health insurance coverage, our president would be talking about gutting one of the only options that make it possible for families to see a doctor when they get sick,” Anna Scholl, Executive Director of Progress Virginia, said. “Trump should be focused on expanding testing and providing PPE to our frontline workers, so that Americans can get back to work without endangering our communities. It’s cruel and disturbing that instead he is focused on destroying the Affordable Care Act, the one thing we depend on so that we don’t have to choose between going to the doctor and putting food on the table.”
Trump vows complete end of Obamacare law despite pandemic [Washington Post, Devlin Barrett]
“President Trump said Wednesday he will continue trying to toss out all of the Affordable Care Act, even as some in his administration, including Attorney General William P. Barr, have privately argued parts of the law should be preserved amid a pandemic.”
“‘We want to terminate health care under Obamacare,’ Trump told reporters Wednesday, the last day for his administration to change its position in a Supreme Court case challenging the law.”
“While the president has said he will preserve some of the Affordable Care Act’s most popular provisions, including guaranteed coverage for preexisting medical conditions, he has not offered a plan to do so, and his administration’s legal position seeks to end all parts of the law, including those provisions.”
“Trump’s declaration caps months of debate within his administration about the best course of action, in which the stakes have only become greater now that the nation’s health-care system is struggling to deal with the spread of the coronavirus, which has killed more than 70,000 Americans.”
“In two previous cases, the Supreme Court upheld the law, but if the high court were to strike it down, millions of people could find themselves without affordable health care.”