The fight against Obamacare is heating up. After the Trump administration’s failed attempt to repeal and replace the Affordable Health Care Act (ACA), they have been working on a minefield of regulations and rulings that are striking fear in insurance markets.
One surprise is that the government is not defending the law in court. ACA has been challenged on many levels, and one of the most important cases is a lawsuit including 20 states, led by Texas, which argues that without an individual mandate (the regulation stating that the majority of people must have health insurance or pay a fine that will be removed in 2019), all of Obamacare should be declared unconstitutional.
In general, the government defends federal plans, but this legal abandonment could affect the entire law, and specifically Obamacare’s most popular provisions, including prohibiting insurance companies from denying patients with preexisting conditions coverage.
What is a preexisting condition? It is a condition that a person has prior to purchasing health insurance. It includes almost any condition, including diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma and cancer. Even pregnancy can be considered as preexisting if the woman is already pregnant when looking for insurance.
Under the ACA, no insurance company can deny coverage to anyone for having a preexisting condition.
According to the Department of Health and Social Services, there are nearly 130 million adults under the age of 65 with one or more preexisting conditions. If this lawsuit moves forward, it would be very difficult for these people to obtain health insurance, or they would only be able to obtain it with astronomical premiums.
A survey carried out by the Kaiser Family Foundation revealed the 70% of adults want congress to keep protections in place regarding preexisting conditions.
Before the ACA went into effect it was a challenge for people with diabetes, high blood pressure or asthma, among other conditions, to obtain health insurance. The insurance company could decide not to sell them a policy, or even take away health coverage if they developed a condition.
Obamacare gave some order to this no man’s land since it went into effect in March of 2010.
On June 7, when the Trump administration announced that they would no longer defend the law, three lawyers from the Department of Justice (DOJ) resigned. Nicholas Bagley, a law professor at the University of Michigan and former DOJ lawyer, explained on National Public Radio that “his job is to defend federal programs; lawyers are not politicians; they are public officials... they must have thought that this decision was not congruent with their obligations. These are people who are constantly defending programs that they might not agree with.”
At the Capital, republicans received the news of their resignation with a degree of silence. One of the few who spoke was Tom MacArthur, representative from New Jersey, who expressed a degree of skepticism on the viability of this line of action. He also stated that “we have an agreement with the American people.”
The states in the lawsuit led by Texas differ greatly from other states like California, where the discussion around health care in the campaign for governor revolves around the possibility of offering health insurance for all.
In a press release, democrats in the lower house stated that “there is no doubt that republicans are responsible for increases in the costs of health insurance premiums, and for the possibility that many people can’t pay for their basic health care needs.”
They added that this decision would have an impact on the primary and mid-term elections in November. Campaigns already underway have shown that the issue of health care is key to voters.
More about how Obamacare has helped people with preexisting conditions:
