Consider these realities:
- We are in the midst of a global pandemic, with infections and hospitalizations increasing across the United States.
- The pandemic has caused major disruptions in the economy, with many losing their job, and with it, their healthcare.
- Millions of citizens of our nation desperately need whatever healthcare they have or can get.
And yet, in an act of unfathomable cruelty, in the face of the realities listed above, the Trump Administration and 18 Republican state attorneys general filed briefs late one night last week asking the Supreme Court to strike down the entire Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
“The Trump administration and [Republican] state Attorney Generals lawsuit has the potential to throw the health care system into chaos,” reports the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy. “Hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians would lose coverage and many more would lose/pay more for coverage or care [because of pre-existing conditions].”
This is not new. Republicans voted on this same “unfathomable cruelty” of an idea 54 times between 2011 and 2017. Their problem? There was no “plan” to replace the ACA, which meant people were going to die.
Republicans have been dead wrong to think that private markets can solve problems for the common good.
Remember, the U.S. is the only developed country with a for-profit health care system and job-based health care coverage. Many economists have decried the profit motive as a primary factor in explaining why we were not ready to face this pandemic, because preparation, warehousing supplies, and lining up equipment is not profitable. As a result, many people have died, needlessly.
The Supreme Court is likely to decide this case in early 2021, when the unemployment rate is still expected to be high and the public health crisis will still be ongoing. ACA repeal was projected to cause 20 million people to lose coverage nationally – and that was before the pandemic hit. Millions more would lose coverage with pre-existing conditions. Compound that with unemployment rates now at 15% plus.
Many of the hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians who have lost job-based health coverage are eligible for Medicaid coverage thanks to the ACA. Kentucky has already seen a surge of over 130,000 in Medicaid enrollment, mostly thanks to the ACA expansion of eligibility.
Kentucky’s successful Medicaid expansion, which helps us afford private coverage in the health insurance marketplaces, would be eliminated if the ACA is struck down.
Research shows the ACA has improved access to care, financial security, and health outcomes, with strong evidence that both Medicaid expansion and coverage through the ACA marketplaces save lives. Reversing health coverage gains would put all of us at risk [pre-existing conditions], with effects being even more severe due to the pandemic and recession.
In addition, this pandemic has spotlighted the serious racial gaps in health care coverage. This problem would be made even worse if the ACA goes away. KCEP estimates that in Kentucky, eliminating the ACA would cause nearly “1 in 10 non-elderly Black people, and 1 in 10 non-elderly Hispanic people, to lose their health insurance, compared to about 1 in 16 white people.”
These losses of healthcare coverage from eliminating the ACA, as Trump and the Republicans want to do, would lead to higher costs to both patients and hospitals. Repeal would add to the financial burden on state and local budgets during an unprecedented state budget crisis, and it would also harm providers when many hospitals are in danger of closing from the unprecedented drop in revenues due to the pandemic.
And yet, in the face of all these realities, the Trump administration and Republican attorneys general want to use the Supreme Court to take away the ACA.
Will Mitch McConnell and the Republicans celebrate if the court decides in their favor, thus canceling the health care coverage for hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians? Will Trump declare it a “great victory” as they take away medical care in the midst of a pandemic?
There are only two words for this goal of Trump and the GOP:
Unfathomable cruelty.
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