This is Trumpcare.
The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg comes just as the Supreme Court was about to hear a case challenging the ACA. It could end Medicaid expansion and protections for preexisting conditions.
www.npr.org
Still, what started out as an effort to energize Republican voters for the 2018 midterms after Congress failed to "repeal and replace" the health law in 2017 could end up throwing the nation's entire health system into chaos.
At least 20 million Americans — and likely many more who sought coverage since the start of the coronavirus pandemic — who buy insurance through the ACA marketplaces or have Medicaid through the law's expansion could lose health coverage right away. Many millions more would lose the law's popular protections that guarantee coverage for people with preexisting health conditions, including those who have had COVID-19.
Adult children under age 26 would no longer be guaranteed the right to remain on their parents' health plans, and Medicare patients would lose enhanced prescription drug coverage. Women would lose guaranteed access to birth control at no out-of-pocket cost.
But a sudden elimination would affect more than just patients. Insurance companies, drug companies, hospitals and doctors all have changed the way they do business because of incentives and penalties in the health law. If it's struck down, many of the "rules of the road" would be wiped away, including billing and payment mechanisms.
A new Democratic president could not drop the lawsuit, because the Trump administration is not the plaintiff (the GOP attorneys general are). But a Democratic Congress and president could in theory make the entire issue go away by reinstating the penalty for failure to have insurance, even at a minimal amount. For now, however, nothing is a sure thing as far as the health law goes.
