CARSON CITY, Nev. — The Affordable Care Act is in danger again as the Trump administration is back in federal court in New Orleans today fighting to overturn it.
A judge on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments in the case that pits the Justice Department and 18 conservative-led states who want he healthcare plan thrown out against Nevada and 15 other states, and the House of Representatives, who are defending the program. Caroline Mello Roberson, state director of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League in Nevada, said if the ACA is overturned, many people would suffer.
"My thoughts are primarily with the hundreds of thousands of Nevadans who have health insurance thanks to the ACA and have access to things like no co-pay birth control,” Roberson said.
About 20 million Americans gained health care when some states expanded Medicaid with money from the Affordable Care Act. The act also established important protections for people with pre-existing conditions and imposed lifetime caps on the amount patients would have to pay. It also allowed young people up to age 26 to stay on their parents' insurance.
Opponents have said the ACA amounts to an unconstitutional mandate to buy insurance.
Chip Evans, co-founder of Indivisible Northern Nevada, said there would be chaos if the Affordable Care Act is dismantled with nothing to replace it.
"It creates more problems than it fixes,” Evans said. “Every piece that you take out of the ACA, you take it out of people's economic security."
The Supreme Court upheld the law after a prior challenge, and could well see it again, depending on the outcome of this case.
