Center for American Progress

STATEMENT: Refusal to Back ACA in Court Breaks President Trump’s Promise to Defend Pre-Existing Condition Protections
Press Statement

STATEMENT: Refusal to Back ACA in Court Breaks President Trump’s Promise to Defend Pre-Existing Condition Protections

Washington, D.C. — Tonight, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it will refuse to defend the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in a lawsuit brought by the state of Texas. Topher Spiro, Vice President of Health Policy at the Center for American Progress, released this statement following the Administration’s court filing:
This is just the latest example of President Trump and Republicans in Congress’s obsession with undermining the health and well-being of the American people. In refusing to follow bipartisan tradition and defend the ACA in the U.S. federal court system, the Trump Administration is nakedly admitting that it wants to eliminate protections for people with pre-existing conditions, breaking a promise that the president has made time and again.
This frivolous attack, on what even Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) has called the law of the land, builds on the Administration and Congress’s track record of deliberately injecting uncertainty into the insurance markets and increasing costs for the American people.
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