Washington
Times (DC) November 28, 2018
The Trump
administration is formulating a backup plan to ensure that Obamacare customers
can still get insurance if a state-driven lawsuit is successful in striking
down the 2010 health law.
Seema Verma,
administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, declined
to give details of those plans or who might be covered, but the fact that
planning is underway suggests how seriously the administration is taking the
threat from the court case.
The contingency
planning is all the more striking because the Trump administration has refused
to defend Obamacare in the lawsuit, effectively siding with the states that say
the law is now invalid after Congress last year eliminated the individual
mandate requiring almost all Americans to hold insurance.
"We do have
contingency plans. We want to make sure that people with preexisting conditions
have protections, and we want to make sure that people have access to
affordable coverage," Ms. Verma told reporters at
the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative D.C. think tank.
She declined to
elaborate, saying the fallback "may or may not be needed."
A federal judge is
expected to rule any day now on the lawsuit from 20 Republican-led states.
They've asked for the judge to enjoin Obamacare.
It's likely any
decision against the law would be stayed pending an appeal to higher courts,
though the case is considered the biggest remaining threat to the program.
Democrats during
the midterm campaign repeatedly blasted Republicans for backing the
lawsuit, saying if it's successful it will strip coverage from people with
pre-existing conditions.
A Kaiser
Family Foundation poll released Wednesday found a majority of Americans —
including 87 percent of Democrats and just over half
of Republicans — would like to see their states restore those
protections if the judge rules against Obamacare, "even if this means some
healthy people may pay more for coverage."
Obamacare's
defenders say rather than make alternate plans, the Trump administration should
reverse itself and defend the health law in court.
"The best
contingency plan for protecting American health care — and especially for those
with pre-existing conditions — is for the administration to withdraw its
support for this disastrous lawsuit and instead defend the law of the
land," Protect Our Care, a pro-Obamacare group, said in response
to Ms. Verma's comments.
President
Trump recently told Axios, an online news outlet, he didn't get a heads up
from the Justice Department before it decided not to defend the law.
He says protections
for people with preexisting conditions can be added in new legislation later,
if the lawsuit is successful.
Democrats contend Republicans cannot
be trusted after they attempted to repeal Obamacare in its entirety in 2017.
Democrats say
they'll push early in the new Congress, when they'll control the House, to
reaffirm Obamacare's protections. They'll also take steps to intervene in
the Texas lawsuit and defend the law, just
as Republicans did when President Obama's administration
refused to defend a law.
House
Democrats will also have the ability to conduct oversight of the Trump
administration.
Ms. Verma said
her agency will do its best to respond to oversight requests
from Congress.
She also said she
doesn't plan on leaving her post, even if there is post-election turnover
elsewhere in the administration.
Her agency is
overseeing parts of Mr. Trump's sweeping plan to slash drug prices
and an overhaul of Medicaid insurance for the poor, in which states can now
condition benefits on working, volunteering or going to school if they seek a
waiver from the federal government.
"After a year
and a half," she said, "I have only just gotten started."
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