“Patrick Morrisey and Josh Hawley knew exactly what they were doing when they joined their lawsuit attacking the Affordable Care Act. Their actions put millions of West Virginians and Missourians with pre-existing conditions at risk. Vulnerable Americans deserve better than blatant politicking done at their expense,” said American Bridge spokesperson Amelia Penniman.
Kaiser Health News: States Attacking ACA Would Suffer Most If Preexisting Conditions Shield Gets Axed
By Harriet Rowan | July 17, 2018
- “If the Affordable Care Act’s protections for people with preexisting medical conditions are struck down in court, residents of the Republican-led states that are challenging the law have the most to lose.”
- “Twenty Republican state attorneys general and governors challenged the constitutionality of the ACA in federal court in February…The states’ lawsuit argues that because Congress eliminated the Obamacare tax penalty for not having insurance coverage, effective next year, the entire law is unconstitutional. By extension, the suit calls on federal courts to find the health law’s protections for people with preexisting conditions unconstitutional.”
- “Nine of the 11 states with the highest rates of preexisting conditions among adults under 65 have signed onto the lawsuit to strike down the ACA.”
- “The state with the highest rate of adults with preexisting conditions is West Virginia — 36 percent of those under age 65. That means that about 1 in 3 of them could have a hard time buying insurance through the individual marketplace without the ACA protections.”
- “The office of West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who joined the legal challenge against the ACA, declined to comment. But a spokesman for Morrisey’s re-election campaign told PolitiFact last month that ‘help should be provided to those who need it most, including those with preexisting conditions.’”
- “Plaintiffs in the lawsuit ‘are paying lip service to these critical protections for people, but they are in fact engaged in a strategy that would get rid of those protections,’ said Justin Giovannelli, an associate research professor at Georgetown University’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms. ‘Frankly, it’s hard to square what they’re saying on the one hand and what they’re arguing in the courts on the other.’”
- “Three-quarters of Americans say that maintaining protections for people with preexisting conditions is ‘very important.’ This includes majorities of Democratic, Republican and independent voters.”
Read the full article here.
Published: Jul 17, 2018 | Last Modified: Feb 1, 2024