This new offensive against this health insurance, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the official name of Obamacare, represents crucial issues for millions of Americans but also for candidates for the presidential election in November.
In the midst of the Covid-19 epidemic, the government of Donald Trump asked the American Supreme Court on Thursday June 25 to repeal the Obamacare law which established the emblematic health insurance of former Democratic President Barack Obama. This new offensive against the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the official name of the Obamacare law, affects the daily lives of millions of Americans and represents a crucial issue for candidates for the presidential election in November.
It was already one of his main campaign promises in 2016, but Donald Trump has vowed to repeal Obamacare if he is re-elected this year. Approved in 2010 despite fierce opposition from Republicans, Obamacare has helped insure nearly 20 million additional Americans but has not ceased to be challenged in the political arena and in court. Since Donald Trump came to power in 2017, more than seven million people have lost their insurance, according to the Gallup Institute.
Indeed, Donald Trump and the Republicans are trying to undermine its foundations, especially the obligation to take out insurance under penalty of sanctions (“individual mandate”), through fiscal measures and legal recourse. After a first failure in Congress, the elected republican managed to remove in 2017 the fine sanctioning the absence of insurance. Several republican states then introduced new legal actions arguing that the law no longer held.
In December 2018, a conservative federal judge in Texas agreed with them, ruling that the whole law was becoming unconstitutional. A judgment partially validated on appeal last December by a federal court which ruled the obligation to insure illegal but left to another court the task of judging if the law was entirely void.
For its part, the Ministry of Justice argues in its appeal filed Thursday evening that “the individual mandate is not separable from the rest of the law”. Since“it is now unconstitutional due to the removal of the fine by Congress”, estimates the ministry, “the ACA in its entirety must be repealed”. The ministry also challenges the ACA’s obligation to insurers to care for all claimants whether sick or in good health, including people with medical histories.
The Supreme Court could examine the case from October for a decision that would come after the presidential election in November in which health issues are a major issue. The Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, has already condemned the Trump administration’s initiative and called it ““act of unimaginable cruelty” during the epidemic.
According to her, 130 million Americans with a medical history could lose the ACA guarantees and up to 23 million people may find themselves without any insurance. “There is no legal justification and no moral excuse for the Trump administration’s disastrous efforts to demolish health coverage.”
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