As GOP continues march to repeal ACA, thousands of Mainers could lose coverage

With up to 221,000 Mainers at risk of losing their employer-sponsored health insurance as a result of the pandemic, Maine health care advocates convened a press call Thursday to denounce Republicans for continuing their effort to undo the Affordable Care Act.

“At a time when, more than ever, we should have a government that works to protect and expand health care for all Americans […] we instead are faced with the terrifying opposite,” Vivian Mikhail, state director of Protect Our Care Maine, said on the call Thursday. “No action would be more damaging to Americans’ health and safety than if the Trump administration achieves its goal of overturning the ACA during the coronavirus crisis.”

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump reiterated that his administration is backing the Republican attorneys general attempting to overturn the ACA through a lawsuit.

“We want to terminate health care under Obamacare […] We’re going to replace Obamacare,” Trump told reporters.

The lawsuit, Texas v. California, has its roots in the 2017 GOP tax overhaul, which repealed the ACA’s individual mandate. Spearheaded by state attorneys general from Texas and other Republican-controlled states, the lawsuit argues that the ACA is unconstitutional because, without the individual mandate, the law no longer fits within Congress’ taxation authority.

The U.S. Supreme Court announced in March that it would take up the lawsuit during its next term, which begins in October.

State Senator Heather Sanborn (D-Portland), co-chair of the state legislature’s Committee on Health Coverage, Insurance and Financial Services, said that Republicans “doubling down on challenging the ACA” were short-sighted, given the number of people who are projected to be out of work and without employer-sponsored health insurance.

“I’m boggled why anyone would even continue to question the importance of ensuring that folks have access to health care during a pandemic,” she said.

While aspects of the ACA were codified in state law earlier this year, Sanborn said that the over 53,000 Mainers covered under the expansion of MaineCare, or Medicaid, could be at risk.

“We’ve passed robust patient protections at the state level in the case that the ACA is overturned, but one thing we can’t do is replace the subsidy program and the MaineCare expansion dollars that the federal government provides Maine through the ACA,” said Sanborn. “Those are the things truly at risk for Mainers if the Supreme Court decides to strike down the law.”

The House of Representatives and a coalition of supportive Democratic attorneys general also submitted briefs on Wednesday contending that with an estimated 30 million Americans now out of work, the ACA is more important now than ever before.

Photo: Joe Raedle, Getty Images