Health insurance coverage for tens of millions of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans could be wiped away pending the outcome of a legal case heard by a federal appeals court on July 9.
A total of 18 Republican-led states are working closely with the Trump administration in hopes of overturning the Affordable Care Act. If the GOP attorneys general and the Trump administration have their way, it will have major implications for millions of Americans. Approximately 20 million Americans gained affordable healthcare insurance coverage as a result of the ACA, with about three-quarters of the gain coming from the expansion of the federal Medicaid program. Subsidies for many of those who didn’t qualify for Medicaid (due to higher income), helped several more million Americans pay for private insurance.
For those 20 million Americans, health insurance coverage would mostly be wiped away should the GOP and the Trump administration win their case in court.
Many more Americans would be affected in other ways. The ACA also requires insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions, eliminates co-pays for many preventative medical services, and allows young people to remain on their parents’ insurance plan until age 26.
All of these provisions could well be eliminated depending on the outcome of the case. The Republican effort to kill the Affordable Care Act passed its first legal hurdle earlier this year when a federal judge in Texas ruled that the ACA’s requirement to purchase health insurance, known as the individual mandate, is unconstitutional.