America’s Health Care Is Under Existential Threat

If you have a pre-existing condition - as many of us do - or have children under age 26 who lack their own health care coverage, or require expensive prescriptions, or are lower income and rely on Medicaid to provide coverage for you and your family, you should be terrified by Donald Trump and Moscow Mitch McConnell's effort to ram through a far right ideologue onto the U.S. Supreme Court.  Likewise, you need to open your eyes to the reality that the Republican Party wants to make health insurance coverage a right of the wealthy but no one else - just as during the Gilded Age which seems to be the "good old days" that the GOP wants to recreate.  If Trump and the GOP prevail in case to be argued before the Supreme Court in November, the Affordable Health Care Act could be struck down thanks to an additional far right justice and millions will lose health care coverage and many hospitals, especially in rural areas, will likely face closure due to the drop in Medicaid coverage. How can this nightmare be stopped?  Register to vote and vote in the coming elections for a straight Democrat ticket up and down the ballot.  Republicans need to be defeated at every level to punish their party's war on health care coverage.  A piece in the New York Times looks at the coming catastrophe if Trump and the GOP prevail.  Here are excerpts:

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death could not have come at a worse time for the millions of Americans who get their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act.

One week after the election, the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear yet another case about whether the law is constitutional. The case was worrisome enough when Chief Justice John Roberts held the swing vote. But if President Trump succeeds in seating a new justice, the political gravity of the court will lurch even further to the right. A case that once looked like a Hail Mary would stand a real chance of success.

That means more than ever, health care is on the ballot. Joe Biden has already tied the battle over President Trump’s Supreme Court appointee to the fate of health reform, and Democrats should keep banging that drum until Election Day.

What’s at stake is not just the coverage that millions of Americans have gained through the new insurance exchanges and the Medicaid expansion but also the parts of the law that protect Americans with pre-existing conditions.

Other popular provisions hang in the balance, including those that guarantee preventive care with no out-of-pocket payments; end lifetime caps; allow kids to stay on their parents’ insurance through age 26; and make vaccines free to patients. Even some key improvements to Medicare — including a reduction in prescription drug costs for beneficiaries — would be gone.

Overnight, if the Affordable Care Act is eliminated, we will return to the health care system of 2010 — all this as we battle a virus that has killed more than 200,000 Americans.

Indeed, contracting the virus is the ultimate pre-existing condition. The disease can bring with it mysterious complications and affect virtually every organ system, the immune system and even the limbs. Young, otherwise healthy people may find themselves uninsurable if the Affordable Care Act is struck down.

A group of red states led by Texas, however, built a tortured argument on top of that one word. By keeping “shall” while ending the penalty, they said, Congress must have meant to coerce people into buying insurance. And that kind of congressional coercion is unconstitutional. Furthermore, they claimed that the entire law must go because one part of it couldn’t be legally “severed” from another.

Instead of defending the law against the attack, however, President Trump decided to use the lawsuit as a vehicle for undoing the Affordable Care Act in the courts.

Yet even as President Trump has tried to eliminate Obamacare, the law has only grown in popularity. The more the law is threatened, the more the public realizes its value.

That’s why Republicans don’t want to talk about health care in this election. The topic typically ranks as the single most important issue for voters, who view Democrats more favorably on it. Indeed, Republican losses in the 2018 midterms were widely attributed to the party’s stance on health reform.

But President Trump’s support for a dangerous Supreme Court case offers a simple, clear way to explain to voters that Republicans are lying when they say they support protections for people with pre-existing conditions. The explanation will land with particular force in a country suffering from a botched response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The lawsuit poses an existential threat to the nation’s health care system, and President Trump should be judged for recklessly supporting it.

If Mr. Biden wins the White House and Democrats take the Senate, they could pass a law that either imposes a financial penalty (even a $1 penalty) for not having insurance or wipes the “shall” language from the books. Such a law would make the lawsuit moot before the Supreme Court acts. But if the Republicans manage to hold on to the presidency or either chamber, there is no guarantee the Affordable Care Act, its coverage or its protections will survive.

Passing a law would require Democrats to overcome a likely Republican filibuster — either by proceeding via a special procedure called reconciliation or by eliminating the filibuster. Depending on how the election breaks, however, Democrats may have the votes to do it.

Which is why this year’s election will — yet again — be a referendum on health reform.

In the coming weeks, the Affordable Care Act’s supporters have a chance to highlight President Trump’s opposition to protections for people with pre-existing conditions, to demonstrate that ending the law would be a calamity for millions of Americans and to prove that Republicans can’t win elections if they relentlessly oppose the principle that everyone — sick and poor alike — is entitled to health coverage.