Joe Biden yesterday attacked Trump's cruelty for trying to prevent Americans from having reliable health care. Late last night, proving him right, the Trump administration joined a serious challenge to the Affordable Care Act. Via the New York Times:
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court late Thursday to overturn the Affordable Care Act — a move that, if successful, would bring a permanent end to the health insurance program popularly known as Obamacare and wipe out coverage for as many as 23 million Americans.
In an 82-page brief submitted an hour before a midnight deadline, the administration joined Republican officials in Texas and 17 other states in arguing that in 2017, Congress, then controlled by Republicans, had rendered the law unconstitutional when it zeroed out the tax penalty for not buying insurance — the so-called individual mandate.
The administration’s argument, coming in the thick of an election season — as well as a pandemic that has devastated the economy and left millions of unemployed Americans without health coverage — is sure to reignite Washington’s bitter political debate over health care.
Sure, that's a smart move. Why not? After all, while Republican poll numbers are in the tank, they can still get worse!
The Supreme Court has agreed to consider three legal questions in the case: whether Texas and two individual plaintiffs who have joined the suit have standing; whether Congress rendered the individual mandate unconstitutional; and, if it did, whether the rest of the law must fall with it.
If the court strikes down only the mandate, not much will change, according to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation, which wrote that the “practical result will be essentially the same as the A.C.A. exists today, without an enforceable mandate.” But if the court decides that all or part of the law must be overturned, it would affect “nearly every American in some way,” the foundation wrote.
Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi has announced a vote Monday to expand the health care act, calling Trump's move "an act of unfathomable cruelty.”
Remember, kids: The cruelty is the point.
