5 things to know about the lawsuit to overturn the ACA
The Trump administration and 18 Republican state attorneys general are working to have courts strike down the entire Affordable Care Act. This would devastate millions of Americans who rely on the ACA for access to healthcare.
Last December, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals held that one section — the individual mandate of the ACA — is unconstitutional and sent the case back to the district court to determine how much of the law could be struck down. In response, California’s state attorney general — backed by a bipartisan coalition of economists, patients’ groups, hospitals, healthcare providers, healthcare insurance companies and others — asked that the U.S. Supreme Court grant a review of this decision and fast-track the decision before the court’s term ends in June. Unfortunately, the court has decided not to expedite the case, meaning the full outcome of Trump’s attack on the ACA may not be known until after the election. We have to remember that the future of access to healthcare is on the ballot. Let’s keep reminding voters what’s at stake.
For now, the ACA remains the law of the land, but here are five things you should know about the lawsuit and what Trump’s plan to overturn the healthcare law means:
1.Gutting protections for every American with a pre-existing condition Before the ACA, insurance companies routinely denied people coverage because of a pre-existing condition or canceled coverage when a person got sick. Now, insurance companies will be able to do this again.
2. Hiking premiums for millions of Americans The loss of the healthcare law would mean the number of uninsured people would increase by 20 million, or 65 percent, according to estimates from the Urban Institute.
3. Reopening the Medicare “doughnut” hole
If the entire ACA is overturned, seniors will have to pay more for prescription drugs because the Medicare “doughnut” hole will be reopened. Nearly 12 million Medicare beneficiaries received discounts of more than $26 billion on prescription drugs from 2010 to 2016, according to a 2017 Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services report.
4. Putting health insurance companies back in charge
Insurance companies will no longer allow children the ability to stay on their parents’ healthcare plan until age 26. Overturning the ACA would also allow insurance companies to deny coverage for drug costs, to charge women more than men, and let companies use insurance premiums for unlimited executive bonuses instead of paying for care.
5. Millions enrolled through Medicaid expansion could lose coverage
Without Medicaid expansion, 17 million people, including those with disabilities, would lose coverage. Access to treatment would be in jeopardy for 800,000 people with opioid use disorder. Support for rural hospitals would disappear, leaving hospitals with $9.6 billion more in uncompensated care. Rural hospitals rely on Medicaid; without it, many would face closure. According to the National Rural Health Association, being located in a Medicaid expansion state decreases the likelihood of closure by 62.3 percent. Since 2010, 120 rural hospitals have closed; the vast majority closed in states that had not expanded Medicaid at the time of the hospital closure.
“The Republican Party has made its hatred of the ACA central to its political dogma, and has done everything to undermine and end it. Central to this has been the GOP’s legal strategy to challenge the law’s constitutionality,” says AFT President Randi Weingarten. “Now, when it’s clear there are consequences to this strategy — that millions of American people, including those with pre-existing conditions, will be denied healthcare — the GOP is trying to have it both ways. End the law, but do it after 2020, hoping the electorate won’t notice.”
