This week, Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats announced legislation that would deliver Americans lower costs and better care. President Trump announced his full support of a lawsuit that would strip health care and pre-existing condition protections from millions. Editorial boards across the country have taken note — the contrast could not be more clear. Take a look for yourself:
Bloomberg Editorial: House Democrats’ Smart Plan To Bolster Obamacare. “The ACA remains under fierce assault. And that is all the more reason to welcome a new effort by Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives to buttress the law.Assorted blows against Obamacare have caused premiums for individual health-care policies to be set about 16 percent higher than they otherwise would have been this year. Enrollment fell by 300,000 for 2019 — extending a disgraceful pause in what had been, after passage of the ACA, a steady expansion in American health-care security…With this measure, the Democratic leadership isn’t proposing a revolutionary single-payer plan, but more of the incremental progress toward health-care security that’s already been accomplished by the ACA — which, by the way, is now a broadly popular law. As the Trump administration pursues a radical legal attack on Obamacare’s achievements, the new bill shows that the Democrats can lead responsibly on this vital issue.” [Bloomberg, 3/27/19]
Washington Post Editorial: Trump’s New Attempt To Undo Obamacare Is Senseless. “Previously, the Trump administration argued that only some of the law would have to be quashed. Now, the Justice Department says the whole thing must disappear. This is bonkers. Obamacare is a sprawling law that includes big changes in Medicaid, Medicare, hospital regulation and public-health policy that have no relationship with the individual mandate. The loss of the mandate poses no threat to the viability of Obamacare’s expanded Medicaid program, on which 17 million Americans rely. It has no bearing on whether restaurants should have to post calorie counts on their menus or whether payments to Medicare providers should be cut. Mandate or no, these reforms could persist.” [Washington Post, 3/27/19]
Wall Street Journal Editorial: A Losing Health-Care Strategy. “An abiding mystery of the Trump Presidency is why it can’t stand prosperity. And right on time, after its victory on Russian collusion, the Administration decided this week to elevate a legal fight over health care that it is almost sure to lose…As for the politics, the White House calculation seems to be that a legal decision striking down the law would force Congress to act. President Trump said on Wednesday that ‘if the Supreme Court rules that ObamaCare is out, we will have a plan that is far better than ObamaCare.’ The GOP and Democrats can then offer Americans their competing health-care visions in 2020, and may the best plan win. But the White House had better hope it doesn’t have that debate after millions have lost their insurance in an election year due to a court case. The GOP couldn’t agree on a plan to replace ObamaCare when it ran all of Congress, and many of the GOP Members most knowledgeable about health care have retired. If there’s some new emerging GOP consensus, we haven’t heard about it.” [Wall Street Journal, 3/27/19]
USA Today Editorial: Trump Prattles On About Making GOP ‘The Party Of Health Care,’ But Republicans Have No Such Plan. “While President Donald Trump prattled Wednesday about some forthcoming, unspecified offering that would be ‘far better than Obamacare’ and make the GOP ‘the party of great health care,’ he has no such plan. Such a plan has never existed for one simple reason: The ACA largely is that plan. Its basic architecture was devised in the 1990s as a conservative alternative to the proposals of Bill and Hillary Clinton. Later, it would be put into practice by Republican Mitt Romney, when he was governor of Massachusetts, and appropriated by Democrat Barack Obama when he was a presidential candidate. Ironically, and cynically, the biggest winner from the renewed effort to kill Obamacare is Democratic lawmakers. With Trump off the hook on Russian collusion, they could hardly restrain their glee this week as they attacked the president and unveiled plans to expand coverage.” [USA Today, 3/27/19]
Columbus Dispatch Editorial: Trump’s Delusion Won’t Make GOP Health Care Champions. “‘Let me tell you exactly what my message is: The Republican Party will soon be known as the party of health care,’ he told reporters on Tuesday.
We suggest he left a word off the end of that comment: devastation. That will be the result if Trump and his Justice Department are successful in pursuing total invalidation of the Affordable Care Act through a court challenge pending in a federal appeals court in New Orleans…Democrats are understandably gleeful at Trump’s folly in claiming Republicans can transform into health care champions. The fantasy in that view is why Democrats regained the House in the 2018 midterm elections.” [Columbus Dispatch, 3/29/19]
Charleston Gazette-Mail Editorial: Having Learned Nothing, Trump Goes After Obamacare Again. “President Donald Trump, feeling exuberant from an exoneration that was not at all an exoneration from the Mueller investigation, has again decided to set his sights on destroying the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. Trump is once more proving he never learns from anything, and GOP incumbents are wondering what to do with this new landmine as the 2020 election approaches…If the ACA is repealed, Americans will suffer. They will be denied health insurance, and their out-of-pocket medical expenses will soar. In a state like West Virginia, it would likely mean more medical providers would shut down, making health care even more inaccessible for rural residents.” [Charleston Gazette-Mail, 3/29/19]
St. Louis Post-Dispatch Editorial: Trump, Hawley Bid To Kill Obamacare Endangers America’s Health — And The GOP’s. “In its place, the White House offers mendacious rhetoric about bringing more and better coverage to the most vulnerable Americans, while working in plain view to do exactly the opposite: to return America to a place where having a pre-existing medical condition can mean personal bankruptcy or worse…And how would President Donald Trump address the gaping health care hole he proposes to open? He offered typically empty bluster: ‘The Republican Party will soon be known as the party of health care. You watch.’ America will. And if this suit succeeds, the walloping the GOP took in House races last year — largely because of Republican intransigence on health care — would look like a pin prick compared to the political health crisis the GOP could be facing.” [St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 3/27/19]