Trump Administration Asks Supreme Court to Overturn Affordable Care Act
MONDAY, June 29, 2020 (HealthDay News) — The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to overturn the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
Last month, President Donald Trump vowed to overturn the health reform legislation passed during the Obama presidency, and on Thursday his administration filed a brief with the Supreme Court in support of a challenge to the ACA by a coalition of Republican attorneys general, the Washington Post reported.
The brief, which said “the entire ACA must fall,” was filed the same day that the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said 487,000 Americans recently used the special enrollment period on Healthcare.gov after losing their healthcare plans.
That’s 46% more enrollments than in April and May 2019, and many of the new enrollees are likely among the millions of people who lost their job during the pandemic, the Post reported.
Overturning the ACA would leave more than 23 million Americans without healthcare plans, according to the think tank, Center for American Progress.
In response to the brief, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement that there is “no moral excuse for the Trump Administration’s disastrous efforts to take away Americans’ health care.”
On Wednesday, Pelosi filed a bill to expand the ACA, the Post reported.
Concerns that dismantling the ACA could worsen the coronavirus pandemic were dismissed by White House spokesman Judd Deere.
“A global pandemic does not change what Americans know: Obamacare has been an unlawful failure and further illustrates the need to focus on patient care,” Deere said in a statement to the Post.
Oral arguments in the ACA case are scheduled for the Supreme Court’s next term, but it’s not clear if they’ll take place before the election, and a decision may not come until 2021.
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