Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Perspectives: Is Suit Against Health Law A Charade Or Legit Argument?; There's No Alternative If Court Strikes Final Nail In Coffin
Bloomberg: Winning The Obamacare Lawsuit Would Be A Disaster For The GOP
There’s an important bit of contingency planning that Republicans have neglected to do. Neither in the White House nor on Capitol Hill are they prepared for the possibility that their lawsuit against Obamacare will succeed. Most observers don’t expect the courts to strike down the law, and Tuesday’s oral arguments in a New Orleans federal courtroom didn’t change many minds. If the suit is successful, however, it will create an acute problem for a lot of people. Insurers will again be able to discriminate against people with chronic conditions. Many states’ budgets will be thrown into turmoil as Washington stops covering most of the tab for the expansion of Medicaid coverage to households just above the poverty line. People who get their insurance through Obamacare’s exchanges will stop receiving the tax credits that make it affordable. (Ramesh Ponnuru, 7/10)
USA Today: Affordable Care Act Lawsuit: GOP Risks American Lives
There has been so much tawdry and titillating news this week, you may not have noticed that people you elected took another step toward killing your health care. And perhaps indirectly ... you. Republican attorneys general (supported by President Donald Trump) filed a lawsuit to kill the Affordable Care Act, a case heard this week by a federal appeals court in New Orleans. If the lawsuit succeeds (it may well end up at the Supreme Court), the prohibitions against being denied health care coverage for preexisting conditions will disappear and Obamacare would suddenly cease to exist, more than 20 million Americans could find themselves without health insurance. Just like that. (EJ Montini, 7/10)
The New York Times: Obamacare’s Precarious Fate
Two federal judges in one of the most conservative appeals courts in the nation appeared ready on Tuesday to fall for the most specious legal challenge that the Affordable Care Act has faced — which is saying something. The two Republican-appointed judges on the three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit — Jennifer Elrod (appointed by George W. Bush) and Kurt Engelhardt (appointed by President Trump) — seemed to have little patience for the arguments in defense of Obamacare presented by lawyers for the House of Representatives and a group of blue-leaning states. (7/10)
The Washington Post: GOP Lies And Bad Faith Are Set To Unleash An Epic Health-Care Disaster
You know that feeling you get from witnessing something so shocking that it makes you feel the world has gone mad, even as you simultaneously feel incapable of greeting it with the appropriate outrage because you’ve suffered through so many equally outrageous things recently? Perhaps there’s a long word in German for this. Whatever that word might be, it’s what anyone following the Republican lawsuit seeking to strike down the entire Affordable Care Act is now feeling. (Paul Waldman, 7/10)
The Washington Post: Would Republicans Prefer Socialized Medicine?
When President Barack Obama conceived of the Affordable Care Act, he did everything he could to bring Republicans to his side. He created a system that was market-friendly and drew on ideas that members of the GOP had endorsed in the past. His conciliatory efforts bought him nothing except a long delay in getting a bill through the Senate, a lag that nearly killed the entire enterprise. (E.J. Dionne, 7/10)
