U.S. Senator John Cornyn tries to walk through the motions of supporting health care for all Texans, but, in the end, he couldn’t bring himself around to doing so.
On Wednesday, he voted to defend junk health care plans, which aren’t required to cover pre-existing conditions like cancer, prescription drugs, or maternity benefits.
“Senator Cornyn’s support for these reckless junk health plans makes it clear why he has no credibility when it comes to protecting Texans’ health care,” said Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesperson Stewart Boss. “By throwing his support behind these junk plans, he’s going even further to expose Texans to higher costs, unreliable care, and weaker protections for critical benefits like pre-existing conditions coverage and maternity care.”
Cornyn has been an avid proponent of killing the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, which has provided 1 million Texans health insurance and protects pre-existing conditions.
Meanwhile, as KERA in Dallas reported, legal experts expect a ruling from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on the Texas-led challenge to the ACA, which “will likely come down sometime before the holidays this year.”
Ultimately, the case is expected to be decided at the U.S. Supreme Court in 2020.
Republicans claim that they can eliminate the ACA without any negative consequences.
“Without the Affordable Act does not mean that Congress or the individual states themselves could not come back and replace some of the ways that people currently have coverage,” said Rob Henneke of the right-wing Texas Public Policy Foundation, one of the plaintiffs in the case. “So, the fact the law might be struck down does not mean that nothing could ever replace it.”
“Ever?” Sure. But it would take many months, if not years, to come up with new health care law in highly divisive Washington. And the Republican track record of coming up with a replacement for the ACA is poor. They don’t have a replacement to catch the millions of people dumped from the ACA if it’s struck down.
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