Thursday, 25 June _Flicking a dismissive jab at President Donald Trump, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled a plan Wednesday to expand “Obamacare," even as Trump's administration is about to file arguments in a Supreme Court case to strike it down.
Pelosi announced an upcoming floor vote on her measure, setting up a debate that will juxtapose the Democrats' top policy issue, Trump's unrelenting efforts to dismantle Obama's legacy, and the untamed coronavirus pandemic.
On Thursday, the Trump administration is expected to file papers with the Supreme Court arguing that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional. Pelosi wants her bill on the House floor Monday.
Trying to overturn a health insurance expansion providing coverage to about 20 million people “was wrong any time,” Pelosi said.
“Now, it is beyond stupid," she added. “Beyond stupid.”
COVID-19 cases are rising in major states like Texas, Florida and California, and millions of workers who have lost coverage in the economic shutdown to contain the virus can rely on the health law as a backup.
The White House said Pelosi is just playing politics. “Instead of diving back into partisan games, Democrats should continue to work with the president on these important issues and ensuring our country emerges from this pandemic stronger than ever,” spokesman Judd Deere said Wednesday in a statement.
Pelosi's legislation has no chance in the Republican-controlled Senate.
Her bill would expand subsidies, allowing more people to qualify for coverage under the ACA. It would financially squeeze some states that have refused to expand Medicaid under the health law. And it would empower Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices — a position Trump once favored but later abandoned.
It would also undo the Trump administration's expansion of short-term insurance plans that don't have to cover preexisting medical conditions, something Democrats say will undermine a central achievement of the ACA.
Democrats won control of the House in 2018 on their defense of the health care law. Since then, that chamber has voted on most of the measures in Pelosi's plan in one form or another.
But, as underscored in a memo last month led by Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Cheri Bustos, D-Ill., the broader goal is to make Republicans squirm.
“Republicans at all levels own this lawsuit’s attack on Americans’ health care,” said the memo. “They will be held responsible for their party-wide obsession with throwing our health care system into chaos and stripping health care from 20 million Americans during a global pandemic.”
Obama's law has grown more popular since Trump's unsuccessful effort to repeal it in 2017, when Republicans controlled both the House and Senate. In May, a poll from the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation found that 51% of Americans view “Obamacare” favorably while 41% have unfavorable views.
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