Sabotaging the ACA

[Admin]

Reed O’Connor should have to carry a Surgeon General’s warning: This federal judge may be hazardous to your health. O’Connor, a George W. Bush appointee, is a federal district judge in Texas, and he has it in for the Affordable Care Act. In 2018, on the flimsiest of rationales, he declared the entire Obama-era statute unconstitutional. That ruling was eventually overturned by the Supreme Court, on the grounds that Texas didn’t have standing to challenge the law. But O’Connor is back at it, this time going after one of the ACA’s most successful and popular provisions: the requirement that insurers cover preventive services without additional costs, such as requiring co-payments or applying deductibles... 

It is common sense — buttressed by numerous studies — that people are more likely to seek preventive care when they don’t have to pay out of pocket for it. This incentive, as Congress found in enacting the Affordable Care Act, isn’t just good for individuals — it’s good for society, helping to head off illness and lower overall health-care costs. So millions of Americans have relied on this coverage for everything from cancer screening to efforts to head off diabetes and cardiovascular disease. According to a friend-of-the-court brief filed by the American Medical Association, 233 million individuals are enrolled in health plans — employer-sponsored coverage, plans available in the ACA marketplace, Medicare or Medicaid — that are subject to the preventive care rules.

This federal judge may be hazardous to your health