Seema Verma, who oversees Obamacare and public insurance programs, said Tuesday she will work with Congress to shield people with preexisting conditions if a pending lawsuit is successful in striking down 2010 provisions that require insurers to cover sicker Americans.
“I think that we need to have protections in place for those individuals. If the law changes in some way, I would work with Congress to make sure we had protections in place for people with preexisting conditions,” Ms. Verma, administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
Senate Democrats facing tough re-election bids say they’re worried the administration and GOP-led Congress isn’t ready to deal with the fallout from the lawsuit, which argues Obamacare will no longer be constitutional in 2019, since the GOP tax overhaul zeroed out its penalty for lacking insurance.
The suit, filed by 20 Republican-led states, says the Supreme Court relied on that taxing authority to uphold the law as constitutional. If there is no longer a tax, they say the rest of the law should fall, including the parts that require insurers to cover sicker consumers and charge them the same as healthy people.
“I certainly am willing to stay here weekends, 24-7, to make sure those protections stay in place,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill, Missouri Democrat who noted her November opponent, Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley signed onto the lawsuit.
“There doesn’t seem to be any urgency about the fact this lawsuit is moving its way through the courts and could blow up all of the protections.”
Ms. Verma said she couldn’t comment on the pending lawsuit or any insight she might have given to the Justice Department, which has decided not to defend Obamacare against the states’ claims.
“There is nothing consistent about that position,” Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, North Dakota Democrat facing reelection, told Ms. Verma. “Let’s not pretend that there is any commitment here from the Department of Justice to preserve preexisting conditions here. It’s not your decision, but I want that on the record.”
A federal judge in Texas has scheduled oral arguments in the case for Sept. 5.
Obamacare supporters say the lawsuit is laughable since Congress explicitly moved to zero out the mandate penalty while leaving consumer protections alone.
Yet Ms. McCaskill, Ms. Heitkamp and other Senate Democrats facing re-election in states that Mr. Trump won in 2016 are using the lawsuit as a cudgel against their Republican opponents, saying their party is putting incredibly popular provisions at risk.
Besides Mr. Hawley, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey is listed as a plaintiff in the lawsuit, as he challenges Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin III.
Sen. Doug Jones, Alabama Democrat who faces re-election in 2020 after his special election victory, contrasted the White House’s stance on preexisting conditions to its approach to Russian sanctions, on which administration officials have urged lawmakers to look at what they’re doing, not saying.
“Here it seems to be the opposite: ’Watch what we’re saying, and not what we’re doing,’ ” Mr. Jones said.
Sitting Republicans have brushed off Democrats’ complaints, saying they’re put forward alternative plans such as a block-grant bill, known as “Graham-Cassidy,” that would allow sicker Americans to find insurance.
“It’s pretty much ready to go. It definitely preserves guaranteed issue,” Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, Wisconsin Republican, said Tuesday.
However, the last version of that bill had to be pulled in 2017 due to blanket opposition from Democrats and key defections from Republicans, who worried about coverage losses and tweaks to consumer protections.
Graham-Cassidy empowered states to set their own benefits standards instead of getting permission from the federal government to tweak what insurers must cover, such as mental health and maternity care.
States could also apply to let insurers charge sicker people more than healthy ones under the bill, yet must provide a description of “how the state shall maintain access to adequate and affordable health insurance coverage for individuals with preexisting conditions.”
Sen. Bill Cassidy, Louisiana Republican, said the federal government would “pull dollars back” if states failed to provide “adequate and affordable” coverage for sicker Americans, though Democrats said those terms were ill-defined.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.