JD Vance Doubles Down on Attacks on Protections for Pre-Existing Conditions
Washington, D.C. — Yesterday, JD Vance doubled down on his attacks on people with pre-existing conditions by calling to dismantle the protections established under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). His plan to separate insurance pools would raise costs on over 100 million people with conditions like asthma, cancer, and diabetes. Insurance companies would be back in charge and given the power to lock millions of people out of affordable coverage options. In response, Protect Our Care Executive Director Brad Woodhouse issued the following statement:
“Let’s make one thing clear: Donald Trump is coming for the Affordable Care Act. Any talk from his team about returning to high-risk pools means dismantling the ACA and its protections for 100 million people with pre-existing conditions. If Trump and Vance get their way, we would return to a time when people with conditions like asthma, cancer, and diabetes could be left uninsurable and unable to access lifesaving care. Once again, insurance companies would be given free rein to do whatever they want, charging people more for insurance or denying coverage altogether. Trump and Vance are completely out of step with the values of the American people and their health care needs.”
HEADLINES
HuffPost: The GOP’s Obamacare Agenda Just Reemerged From Hiding. “Vance was careful to say he and Trump would “make sure everybody is covered,” just as Trump has promised before. But the actual plans Republicans put forward during the 2017 repeal fight would have caused the number of Americans without insurance to rise by millions or even tens of millions, partly because they did not protect people with pre-existing conditions, partly because they simultaneously proposed to slash funding for Medicaid, the program the insures low-income Americans.” [HuffPost, 9/18/24]
The New Republic: J.D. Vance Reveals Atrocious Little Detail of Trump’s Health Care Plan. “It’s much worse than Trump’s answer about his health care plan during last week’s presidential debate, when the former president said that he had “concepts of a plan” and was widely mocked. Vance’s plan existed before the ACA, and left many Americans, particularly with preexisting conditions, stuck with expensive plans that didn’t cover their issues.” [The New Republic, 09/17/24]
Semafor: JD Vance Reopens The Pre-Existing Condition Debates. “Vance’s comments in the same interview appeared to reference policy ideas advanced by Trump during his presidency that would have significantly changed, pared back, or eliminated aspects of the law’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions… He also criticized the law for putting people into “the same risk pools” with a “one-size-fits-all approach” — a seeming reference to prior Republican proposals to offer insurance to people with expensive conditions in separate “high risk pools” rather than require insurers to cover everyone together under similar plans.” [Semafor, 9/18/24]
STAT: Vance’s Confusing Health Insurance Remarks Give Democrats A New Attack Line. “The Ohio senator obliged. In describing Trump’s health care plan, he started off by saying ‘you want to make sure that pre-existing coverage — conditions — are covered.’ Then he said people should be sorted into risk pools, instead of a ‘one-size-fits-all approach that puts a lot of people into the same insurance pools.’” [STAT, 9/17/24]
Vox: Trump’s Health Care Plan Exposes The Truth About His “Populism.” “… the one concrete policy Vance did detail would actually involve making health care coverage less affordable for those with chronic illnesses… Vance’s vision for health care policy helps clarify the character of the right’s burgeoning “populism.”” [Vox, 9/18/24]
AlterNet: New GOP Strategy: Skyrocket Cost of Health Insurance and Prescription Drugs. “House and Senate Republicans and the Trump campaign are looking to repeal parts of President Joe Biden’s highly-successful Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and President Barack Obama’s highly-successful Affordable Care Act (ACA), with a sharp focus on the provisions that protect access to health insurance and have lowered health care costs and prescription drug costs for millions of Americans – and will do so even more next year.” [AlterNet, 09/18/24]
Neera Tanden, Domestic Policy Advisor to President Biden: “A good thing to focus on today is the fact that Vance said yesterday their plan is to get rid of protections for preexisting conditions and charge older Americans more in insurance premiums. Do you know any of the 100 million people with pre existing conditions? Let ‘em know.” [X, 9/19/24]
Senator Ron Wyden, OR, Chair of the Finance Committee: “JD Vance is saying the quiet part out loud: Trump’s “concepts” of a health care plan amounts to higher costs and worse health care for Americans with pre-existing conditions. Not on my watch.” [X, 9/19/24]
Representative Don Beyer, VA-08: “JD Vance wants Americans to pay more for health care or be denied coverage based on ‘pre-existing conditions’ like being a woman or having asthma. That is what the reality of ‘deregulating insurance markets’ looked like before the passage of the ACA. We can’t go back to that.” [X, 9/17/24]
SOCIAL MEDIA
Joseph Costello, Spokesperson for Harris-Walz Campaign: “If Trump takes power, he promises to put health care for working families on the chopping block, drive up costs, and jeopardize coverage for MILLIONS of Americans.” [X, 9/18/24]
Jonathan Chait, Writer for New York Magazine: “Vance says people with chronic medical conditions would be better off in a risk pool filled with other people with chronic medical conditions (true, if their goal is paying incredible expensive premiums).” [X, 9/18/24]
Charles Gaba, Health Care Data Analyst: “This LITERALLY DEFEATS THE ENTIRE CONCEPT OF HEALTH INSURANCE: SHARED RISK.” [X, 9/18/24]
Cameron Joseph, Washington Bureau Senior Reporter for the Christian Science Monitor: “So Vance is basically going back to pre-Obamacare rules on this.” [X, 9/19/24]
Benjy Sarlin, Washington Bureau Chief for Semafor: “Vance went into even more detail on health care in NC today and again talked about separating people with chronic conditions into separate insurance pools — a major change from the ACA’s approach to pre-existing conditions… [Vance said] ‘allow people with similar health situations to be in the same risk pools, so that makes our health care system work better, makes it work better for the people with chronic issues, it also makes it work better for everybody else.’” [X, 9/18/24]
Tristan Snell, MSNBC Commentator. “Trump and Vance would let insurers discriminate with MUCH higher rates for seniors — and anyone with a pre-existing condition. Non-discrimination is one of the main reforms of the ACA — and Trump would KILL it.” [X, 9/17/24]
Todd Zwillich, NPR Host: “GOP healthcare plans, per the last 24 hours:
– repeal pre-existing conditions protections in private insurance
– repeal Medicare’s negotiating power for Rx drugs
-Vaccine conspiracist RFK Jr in charge of personnel at FDA, CDC, and NIH (according to him).” [X, 9/17/24]