Senate Judiciary Committee Considers Nominations of Two Extremists on Sixth Circuit
Washington, DC – Ahead of today’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the nominations of Chad Readler, a key advisor on the Trump Administration’s lawsuit to end pre-existing conditions protections, and Eric Murphy, an extreme anti-women’s health judicial activist and ex-Big Tobacco corporate attorney, to lifetime appointments on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, Leslie Dach, chair of Protect Our Care, issued the following statement:
“Whether it’s Chad Readler working to rip health care coverage away from the millions of Americans living with pre-existing conditions, or Eric Murphy siding with Big Tobacco over the American people, these are two anti-health care extremists unworthy of lifetime appointments on our federal courts. Period.”
At Risk with Chad Readler: Protections For 130 Million Americans With A Pre-Existing Condition
Roughly half of non-elderly American adults and one in four children, or up to 130 million people, have at least one pre-existing condition. That includes everyone with cancer, diabetes, asthma, and any form of mental health issue or drug abuse problem. Prior to the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies were able to discriminate against them, by charging them more, dropping coverage once people got sick, or denying coverage altogether. The ACA banned all of those practices, providing health security to millions.
Ending protections for people with pre-existing conditions is the official policy of the Trump Administration. Chad Readler played a leading role in the the Trump Administration’s Department of Justice taking the extraordinary step of joining the latest partisan lawsuit that seeks to strike down the ACA and has argued the Courts put Americans at the mercy of insurance companies by overturning provisions in the law that now prevent insurance companies from denying coverage completely or charging people more because of a pre-existing condition. Experts estimate that even if a cancer patient could get covered, they would have to pay as much as $140,000 a year more in premiums.
At Risk with Eric Murphy: Women’s Health Care
Access to safe and legal abortion: By age 45, one in four women in the U.S. has had an abortion, for reasons that are deeply personal. But Eric Murphy has used his power as Ohio’s solicitor general to try to prevent women from accessing safe and legal abortion, including in a case that flouts the precedent in Roe vs. Wade and in a case that the Supreme Court found unconstitutional.
Birth control coverage: Thanks to the ACA, 62.4 million women now have access to birth control with no out-of-pocket costs and as a result, women have saved $1.4 billion on birth control pills alone in 2013. However, Eric Murphy has sided against women and with employers who have sought to deny birth control coverage to their employees.
Access to Planned Parenthood: One in five women have turned to Planned Parenthood for care at some point in their lives for a wide range of health and education services, but numerous state and federal efforts are underway to block low-income women from continuing to rely on this provider of choice for so many. Eric Murphy defended an extreme law that would have prevented low-income women from breast and cervical cancer screenings, and sexual violence prevention services, at Planned Parenthood’s health centers in Ohio.