Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), the chairman of the Senate Health Committee, called the Trump administration’s argument against ObamaCare in a court case “as far-fetched as any I’ve ever heard.”
The Justice Department (DOJ) wrote in a filing Friday that it would not defend ObamaCare’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions, siding in large part with a challenge to the law brought by a coalition of Republican-led states.
{mosads}The states, and the DOJ, argue that Congress’s repeal of the tax penalty associated with ObamaCare’s individual mandate makes the law’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions unconstitutional.
Alexander said it wasn’t the intent to take away protections for people with pre-existing conditions when the mandate penalty was repealed late last year.
“There’s no way Congress is going to repeal protections for people with pre-existing conditions who want to buy health insurance. The Justice Department argument in the Texas case is as far-fetched as any I’ve ever heard,” Alexander said in a statement late Tuesday evening.
“Congress specifically repealed the individual mandate penalty, but I didn’t hear a single senator say that they also thought they were repealing protections for people with pre-existing conditions.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) also defended ObamaCare’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions Tuesday, saying that “everybody” in the Senate is in favor of maintaining them.
Democrats have seized on the DOJ’s filing to argue that Republicans are again trying to take away the most popular parts of ObamaCare ahead of the critical midterms in November.