The fate of the Affordable Care Act is up in the air at the moment. After the repeal of the individual mandate, it seems that a court battle will make its way to the Supreme Court. This gave a chance for the liberal media to fearmonger about the fall of President Obama’s signature piece of legislation.
CNN’s New Day hosted a panel in which they slammed the Trump Administration for taking the legal fight to ObamaCare:
ELIE HONIG [FMR. FEDERAL PROSECUTOR]: Yeah, I think increasingly. The forces are aligning against it. First of all, DOJ changed its position during this administration from its initial position of just the individual mandate. Now under Barr it's the whole thing needs to go. The trial level federal level judge said whole thing needs to go. It sounds like, based on Joan's reporting, that the court of appeals is leaning that way too. And it's going to come up to the Supreme Court. And the only thing that kept John Roberts on the majority the first time around, that aligned him with the liberal justices, is the individual mandate which is now gone. So there’s a real chance.
JOHN AVLON: But, remember how many people we're talking about, right. We’re talking about around 20 million people estimated could lose insurance, 52 million estimated who have pre-existing conditions. So, out of the three judges, two are Republican appointees. It could come down to partisan lines again. But when President Trump in the kickoff speech of his campaign, again, pledged to protect pre-existing conditions, watch what the administration is doing in court.
Co-host Alisyn Camerota also used this as an opportunity to complain that the Democratic presidential candidates were not hammering the GOP hard enough over the possible dismantlement of the Affordable Care Act:
CAMEROTA: But this would require Democrats to seize on this, instead of say busing, at the next debate.
JOHN BERMAN: Well, but look that's not fair. Because the Democrats talk a lot about health care. It's not a busing thing, it's a Medicare for All thing.
CAMEROTA: It is a Medicare for All thing. But I haven't heard them say in as sort of cogent way, you're about to lose your health care if you have a pre-existing condition. Just that message.
BIANNA GOLODRYGA: Right. You haven't heard them really defend the ACA. You've heard them talk about blowing it up, right, and switching over to Medicare for All. They're all over the place when it comes to health care.
BERMAN: Except for Joe Biden.
Senior political analyst John Avlon was willing to recognize that the elimination of private health insurance polls terribly, but the rest of the panel kept the focus solely on bashing Republicans.
Here is the complete transcript from the segment:
CNN's New Day
07/10/2019
6:20 AM
ALISYN CAMEROTA: The Supreme Court seems to be very busy lately. Joan, thank you very much for explaining all of that. Let's bring back our panel. We have Errol Lewis, Elie Honig, John Avalon, and Bianna Golodryga. Elie, so if these three judges decide that they think that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional, or one tenet of it is, what happens to the millions of people who use the Affordable Care Act?
ELIE HONIG: I don't think there's a plan, right? And people should understand, there's a real chance this happens. The Affordable Care Act is in genuine legal jeopardy.
JOHN BERMAN: Growing chance I would say.
HONIG: Yeah, I think increasingly. The forces are aligning against it. First of all, DOJ changed its position during this administration from its initial position of just the individual mandate. Now under Barr it's the whole thing needs to go. The trial level federal level judge said whole thing needs to go. It sounds like, based on Joan's reporting, that the court of appeals is leaning that way too. And it's going to come up to the Supreme Court. And the only thing that kept John Roberts on the majority the first time around, that aligned him with the liberal justices, is the individual mandate which is now gone. So there’s a real chance.
JOHN AVLON: But, remember how many people we're talking about, right. We’re talking about around 20 million people estimated could lose insurance, 52 million estimated who have pre-existing conditions. So, out of the three judges, two are Republican appointees. It could come down to partisan lines again. But when President Trump in the kickoff speech of his campaign, again, pledged to protect pre-existing conditions, watch what the administration is doing in court.
BERMAN: I think the politics of this, Errol, I have to imagine the Democrats, while they don't want people to lose health care, it plays right into their hands.
ERROL LOUIS: Absolutely. And my prediction would be, if it does in fact spool out this way, where it looks like it's in real danger, it would be a gift to the entire Democratic field running for president. They're already making health care an issue we know from all of the polling. We know from the midterms. We know that it is a core issue for the Democratic Party. This is a case where I think for the conservatives who have been trying to kill this, be careful what you wish for. If you get it, the blowback will be unbelievable.
CAMEROTA: But this would require Democrats to seize on this, instead of say busing, at the next debate.
BERMAN: Well, but look that's not fair. Because the Democrats talk a lot about health care. It's not a busing thing, it's a Medicare for All thing.
CAMEROTA: It is a Medicare for All thing. But I haven't heard them say in as sort of cogent way, you're about to lose your health care if you have a pre-existing condition. Just that message.
BIANNA GOLODRYGA: Right. You haven't heard them really defend the ACA. You've heard them talk about blowing it up, right, and switching over to Medicare for All. They're all over the place when it comes to health care.
BERMAN: Except for Joe Biden.
GOLODRYGA: Except for Joe Biden.
BERMAN: In his interview with Chris Cuomo he went extensively into the subject of I'm going to stand up to any Republican or any Democrat who tries to do away with your –
GOLODRYGA: Joe Biden and John Delaney. Who said let's work on fixing the Affordable Care Act. Let’s keep what's working and we'll work on what's not working right on.
AVLON: And by the way, polling overwhelmingly favors that position of the public option versus Medicare for All version that would do away with private insurance.
GOLODRYGA: And don't forget what the President said in the interview with George Stephanopoulos. That he had a medical and health care plan coming out in two weeks. But it's been more than two weeks and we’re still waiting.
