Shot/Chaser

SHOT: “The Rush By Numerous Obamacare-Friendly States To Reopen Enrollment In The Past Week Week Demonstrated The Law’s Potential As A Safety Net In A Time Of A Major Health Crisis.” [Politico, 3/23/20] 

CHASER: Trump Doubles Down on Commitment to “Terminate” the Law and Strip Health Care from 20 Million Americans Amidst Coronavirus Crisis: “Trump reaffirms that his administration will go forward with lawsuit to end the Affordable Care Act: ‘what we want to do is terminate it’ and replace it with something better.” [Sam Stein Twitter, 3/22/20] 

SHOT: HHS Secretary Alex Azar Testified Today That He’s In Charge Of Managing The Coronavirus Outbreak And That Appointing A Czar To Lead The Response Would Be An ‘Oddity’: “I serve as the lead on this while it’s a public health emergency…it’s just the longstanding doctrine that this should be led by HHS with a public health emergency. It’s not actually a change. The oddity was actually what President Obama did with the Ebola response. I don’t know why they felt things weren’t working and needed to do that.” [House Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Hearing, 2/26/20]

CHASER: During Azar’s Testimony, The White House Directly Undercut Azar’s Authority, Claiming That They Are In Fact Considering Appointing A Czar To Lead The Coronavirus Response. “The White House is weighing whether to appoint a coronavirus czar to coordinate the response to the spreading epidemic, according to two people familiar with the matter.” [POLITICO, 2/26/20]

SHOT: Trump Praised His Own Coronavirus Response Today at a Press Conference: “I Think That We’re Doing A Great Job” And Claimed “We Have It Very Much Under Control In This Country.” [Donald Trump, Press Conference, New Delhi, India, 2/25/20] 

CHASER: Hours Later, The CDC Warns The Spread Of Coronavirus In The U.S. Is Not A Question Of If, But When. “Americans should brace for the likelihood that the coronavirus will spread to communities in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Tuesday. ‘It’s not so much of a question of if this will happen in this country any more but a question of when this will happen,’ said Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.” [New York Times, 2/25/20] 

• U.S. Coronavirus Outbreak Inevitable, CDC Official Says. “A coronavirus outbreak in the United States is now inevitable, a top CDC official said Tuesday, elevating concerns that the public health emergency could soon become a full-scale pandemic.” [POLITICO, 2/25/20]

BACKGROUND: 

TRUMP ON THE CORONAVIRUS IN HIS OWN WORDS TODAY:

February 25, 2020: Trump Said Coronavirus Is “Very Well Under Control In Our Country.” “You ask about the coronavirus, which is very well under  control in our country. We have very few people with it, and the people that have it are, in all cases, I have not heard anything other — maybe there’s something new.” [Donald Trump, Press Conference, New Delhi, India, 2/25/20] 

February 25, 2020: Trump On Coronavirus Response: “I Think That We’re Doing A Great Job.” “I think that we’re doing a great job. I felt that — and the decision was made in Japan, let these Americans come back. We’ll see how they are, but they were immediately put into quarantine. There’s no problem whatsoever, they’re quarantined. We approved — I approved — $2.5 billion for just that purpose and also for working at getting a vaccine.” [Donald Trump, Press Conference, New Delhi, India, 2/25/20] 

Trump: “We’re Down To Probably About 10 [Cases]. Most Of The People Are Outside Of Danger Right Now.” “They were in between countries where people weren’t going to take them, and they’re Americans. They’re fully quarantined. They call it ‘fully quarantined.’ We did the right thing. If you were out there and you were an American and you refuse to have any help from your country, these were wonderful people. It wasn’t their fault. We’re down to…we’re really down to probably about 10. Most of the people are outside of danger right now. We’ve had a very strict line on the people we’re taking and the areas from which we’ll take, and I did it very early. It’s never done before and I did it early. I think it was a good decision, as it turned out.” [Donald Trump, Press Conference, New Delhi, India, 2/25/20]

SHOT: At the State of the Union, Trump touted his administration’s expansion of short-term junk plans, while also falsely repeating his claim that he will protect people with pre-existing conditions.”

CHASER: Florida man covered by Trump-backed short-term plan “may owe thousands” after seeking test for coronavirus. 

Miami Herald: A Miami Man Who Flew To China Worried He Might Have Coronavirus. He May Owe Thousands. “Hospital officials at Jackson told the Miami Herald that, based on his insurance, Azcue would only be responsible for $1,400 of that bill, but Azcue said he heard from his insurer that he would also have to provide additional documentation: three years of medical records to prove that the flu he got didn’t relate to a pre-existing condition. While Azcue’s experience shows the potential cost of testing for a disease that epidemiologists fear may develop into a public health crisis in the U.S., one insurance expert sees the episode as a cautionary tale about the potential risks associated with deregulation in the insurance market.” [Miami Herald, 2/24/20] 

• “In 2018, President Donald Trump’s administration rolled back Affordable Care Act regulations and allowed so-called “junk plans” in the market. Consumers mistakenly assume that the plans with lower monthly costs will be better than no insurance at all in case of a medical catastrophe, but often the plans aren’t very different from going without insurance altogether.” [Miami Herald, 2/24/20] 

 

SHOT: President Trump Threatens to Veto The Lower Drug Costs Now Act Which Gives Medicare the Power To Negotiate For Lower Drug Prices. [Office of Management and Budget, 12/10/19] 

CHASER: Just A Few Of The Many Times President Trump Has Said He Supports Give Medicare the Power to Negotiate for Lower Drug Prices: 

• JANUARY 2016: Trump Said He Would “Bid Out” Drugs For Medicare And Save $300 Billion. “Like for instance, drugs with Medicare, they don’t bid them out. They don’t bid them. They pay like this wholesale incredible number, hundreds of — they say like $300 billion could be saved, if we bid them out. We don’t do it. Why? Because of the drug companies, folks.” [Donald Trump, Rally, Farmington, NH, 1/25/16] 
• JANUARY 2017: Trump: “The Other Thing We Have To Do Is Create New Bidding Procedures For The Drug Industry Because They’re Getting Away With Murder.” “We’ve got to get our drug industry back. Our drug industry has been disastrous. They’re leaving left and right. They supply our drugs, but they don’t make them here, to a large extent. And the other thing we have to do is create new bidding procedures for the drug industry because they’re getting away with murder. Pharma, pharma has a lot of lobbies and a lot of lobbyists and a lot of power and there’s very little bidding on drugs. We’re the largest buyer of drugs in the world and yet we don’t bid properly and we’re going to start bidding and we’re going to save billions of dollars over a period of time.” [Donald Trump, Press Conference, New York, NY, 1/11/17] 
• MARCH 2017: Trump: “We’re Going To Bid Out Drug Prices And We’re Going To Try And Have The Lowest Prices Anywhere In The World From Really The Highest.” “Elijah Cummings who was here about two weeks ago, who I happen to think is a terrific man. I don’t know if he’ll say that about me, but I will tell you I really liked him a lot. And we were talking about drugs and prescription drugs and the costs. And you go Europe, you go to Canada, you go to other countries and you buy them for a fraction of what you pay in this country. And that’s been a very big subject for him and it’s a subject for me that is very important and we’re going to either do it in healthcare, which I think we’re going to do it in healthcare, or we’re going to do it separately. But we’re going to bid out drug prices and we’re going to try and have the lowest prices anywhere in the world from really the highest.” [Donald Trump, Meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus, Washington, DC, 3/22/17] 

SHOT: GALLUP Poll: 58 Million Adults Have Been Unable To Afford Prescribed Drugs At Least Once In The Last 12 months. “Dovetailing with these results is a rising percentage of adults who report not having had enough money in the past 12 months to ‘pay for needed medicine or drugs that a doctor prescribed’ to them. This percentage has increased significantly, from 18.9% in January 2019 to 22.9% in September. In all, the 22.9% represents about 58 million adults who experienced ‘medication insecurity,’ defined as the inability to pay for prescribed medication at least one time in the past 12 months.” [Gallup, 11/12/19] 

CHASER: AXIOS: “The drug industry lobbying group PhRMA registered $460 million of revenue in 2018, a shade more than 2017, according to its latest tax returns obtained by the Center for Responsive Politics.” [Axios, 11/18/19] 

SHOT: CMS Administrator Seema Verma Spent Millions Of Taxpayer Dollars To “Get On A Good Footing” And Promote Personal Brand Early On In Trump Administration. [The Hill, 11/12/19]

CHASER: During Her First Year In Office, Verma: 

• Cut the number of days people could sign up for coverage during open enrollment by half, from 90 days to 45 days.
• Slashed the outreach advertising budget for Open Enrollment by 90 percent, from $100 million to just $10 million – which resulted in as many as 1.1 million fewer people getting covered.
• Announced support for states imposing onerous work requirements and approved Kentucky’s worst-in-the-nation waiver the very next day.

LIME: CNBC: Rate Of Uninsured Americans Rises For The First Time Since Obamacare Took Effect In 2014. [CNBC, 9/10/19] 

For more on the Trump administration’s war on health care, see our sabotage tracker. 

New GALLUP data today revealed that 58 million people were unable to afford medicine that they were prescribed in the past year. Sure enough, President Trump is siding with big drug companies to oppose the “Lower Drug Costs Act (H.R. 3)” which allows Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices for people on Medicare and people on private insurance. The nonpartisan CBO says it reduces the most expensive drugs by as much as 55 percent. 

SHOT: GALLUP: “The survey also found that 58 million people, roughly one-quarter of all U.S. adults, were unable to pay for drugs they were prescribed during the last 12 months.” [GALLUP, 11/12/19] 

CHASER: MARKETWATCH: “White House rejects Pelosi’s plan to lower drug prices” [Marketwatch, 11/5/19] 

LIME: POLITICO: “Federal health contract funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to Trump allies” [POLITICO, 11/12/19] 

SHOT: HHS Secretary Alex Azar And The Trump Administration ‘Believe The Affordable Care Act Simply Doesn’t Work.’ [Washington Post, 11/1/19]

CHASER: The Affordable Care Act Is Working For Millions Of Americans Who Rely on The Law Every Day. Here’s How:

• 135 million Americans with pre-existing conditions are now protected
• 17 million people gained coverage through Medicaid expansion
• Nearly 12 million seniors pay less for prescription drugs because the Medicare ‘donut hole’ was closed
• 2.3 million adult children are able to stay on their parents’ insurance
• Women able to access coverage without being charged 50 percent more than men 
• 9 million people can purchase health care in the marketplace with federal assistance
• Rural hospitals gained key support from the law 
• Lifetime caps on coverage by insurance companies are banned
• Insurance companies are required to cover prescription drugs and maternity care
• Older Americans are protected from being charged an “age tax” by insurance companies

[Protect Our Care, 4/11/19]

SHOT: PhRMA CEO Warns Pelosi Bill To Lower Drug Prices Would Be ‘Devastating’ For Industry [The Hill, 10/10/19]

CHASER: September 2019 Axios Analysis Found That The Health Care Industry Continued To “Rake In Record-Level Profits” In The Second Quarter, With Year-Over-Year Earnings Increasing By 23 Percent. “Big Pharma Remains The Cash King… Drug companies collected almost half of all health care profits despite generating less than 20% of industry revenue. 12 of the 16 most profitable companies in Q2 were pharmaceutical firms.” [Axios, 9/19/19]