House Democrats had timed Tuesday’s unveiling of a sweeping bill to expand Obamacare to coincide with the healthcare law’s ninth birthday, but they didn’t expect a political gift from President Trump to land just hours before.
On Monday, Trump’s Department of Justice asked a federal appeals court to strike down all of Obamacare, a shift from its position that only parts of the law be struck down. The announcement allowed Democrats to change the subject to defending healthcare coverage after a report into Russian influence in the 2016 election by special counsel Robert Mueller did not result in charges against Trump or members of his administration.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and several Democratic committee chairmen had already planned to unveil a plan that would help to funnel more funds into Obamacare on Tuesday in order to boost coverage and lower the cost of premiums to customers. After the Trump announcement, they vowed to move swiftly to fight back.
“The Department of Justice becomes the Department of Injustice. … People could die,” Pelosi said at a press conference Tuesday.
Before the event kicked off, people in attendance sang “Happy Birthday” to Pelosi, whose birthday was Tuesday. The bill they’re introducing is formally known as the Protecting Pre-Existing Conditions and Making Healthcare More Affordable Act.
The legislation would undo actions by the Trump administration to let people buy coverage outside of Obamacare’s rules, would fund advertisements for the law urging more people to sign up, and would allow more people to get subsidies to pay for private plans. It would fund a reinsurance program that pays for high medical bills and lowers the cost of premiums, and restore cost-sharing reduction subsidies ended by Trump that pay for low-income people to get help with paying for out-of-pocket medical bills.
The ideas are backed by the healthcare industry because they would lower what individual consumers pay for their health insurance if they get coverage on the Obamacare exchange, but do not control overall healthcare spending. Some of the bills are set for a markup on Wednesday, and Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, D-N.J., pledged to advance them out of the Health Subcommittee.
The latest actions by the Trump administration allow Democratic leaders to encourage liberals to get on board to agree to short-term changes to patch up Obamacare before moving on to more drastic changes to the healthcare system that would allow more people to enroll in government plans. Several Democrats who have co-sponsored the Medicare for All Act that would enroll everyone residing in the U.S. onto a government plan were present at Tuesday’s press conference.
Democrats have tailored their messaging to say they are united on achieving the goal of universal healthcare and cast Republicans as determined to take coverage away from people. If all of the law were to be struck down, it would reverberate across the medical system, undoing protections for people with pre-existing illnesses, rolling back the Medicaid expansion to the poor, striking down reductions in what seniors pay for drugs, and allowing children to stay on their parents’ plans until age 26.
“The Trump position ties a two-year anchor around the neck of every Republican for the next two years,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said during remarks on the Senate floor Tuesday. “Yet again, they will be forced to defend the indefensible.”
The case originated with GOP state officials who asked a judge to strike down all of Obamacare because Congress zeroed out the fine on the uninsured in the tax law. The Trump administration previously held, as the case worked its way through the district court, that only Obamacare’s rules on pre-existing conditions should be invalidated, rather than the entire law. Now, at the appellate level, it’s siding with a district court judge’s ruling that the whole law should fall.
The move puts congressional Republicans in a tough spot, because they were eager to move on from the politics of Obamacare repeal and instead talk about measures that reduce costs for patients when they receive hospital care or when they buy prescription drugs. During a GOP lunch on Tuesday, Trump told senators to come up with a plan to replace Obamacare.
[Opinion: Trump’s DOJ has latched on to bizarre legal theory on Obamacare]
The Republican Party will become “The Party of Healthcare!”
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 26, 2019
Absent action in the courts, major changes to Obamacare are likely to come through a change of leadership in the Senate and the White House.
Democrats are expected to deal with little support from Republicans, who control the Senate and have said they will not support the measure after Democrats blocked a similar bipartisan bill to stabilize Obamacare because it included anti-abortion language.
“The Affordable Care Act is fatally flawed — we need to start fresh,” Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, the top Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, said in a statement. “This time with both parties working together to truly lower costs and give Americans the choice and affordability they deserve.”
