Rushed SCOTUS Hearings Are Part of Tillis’ Final Push to Gut Health Care for Millions of NC'ians

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

October 12, 2020

Rushed SCOTUS Hearings Are Part of Tillis’ Final Push to Gut Health Care for Millions of North Carolinians

Tillis Will Rubber Stamp Nominee Who is Openly Hostile to Health Care Protections

Supreme Court to Hear Challenge to Affordable Care Act on November 10th

Raleigh, N.C. - With just 22 days to go before Election Day, 32 days before the Supreme Court hearings a lawsuit that could wipe out the Affordable Care Act and while routinely trailing in the polls, Thom Tillis is launching his final push to gut health care for millions of North Carolinians by rushing confirmation hearings of a new, anti-health care Supreme Court Justice. Just hours after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, Tillis said he would rubber stamp any Trump Supreme Court nominee, reversing his 2016 position when he insisted that the Senate not confirm a nominee during a presidential election year.

“Amy Coney Barrett is a threat to anyone who needs accessible, affordable health care, and Thom Tillis’ rush to put her on the Supreme Court is his last, desperate attempt to gut health care protections for millions of North Carolinians,” said Piedmont Rising Executive Director Casey Wilkinson. “Coney Barrett would wipe out protections for 1.7 million North Carolinians with pre-existing conditions, take away health care from 600,000, and drive up the cost of premiums and prescription drugs. Thom Tills will pay the price on Election Day for putting an extreme and partisan agenda ahead of the well-being of his constituents.”

Background on Amy Coney Barrett’s clear opposition to the Affordable Care Act and ethical lapses:

• Barrett is an outspoken advocate for invalidating the ACA. She criticized Chief Justice John Roberts for his decision to uphold Congress’s authority to enact large portions of the ACA. According to Barrett, ‘Roberts pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute.’”

• Barrett criticized the Court’s decision in King v. Burwell, where the Court affirmed tax credits that nearly 6.4 million Americans rely on to pay for their health coverage

• Barrett has also been a public critic of the ACA’s birth control mandate, which required insurance plans to cover contraceptives

• Barrett has raised ethics questions after being caught failing to disclose her ties to the financial collapse of a major Pennsylvania hospital system

• Barrett also tried to hide multiple anti-abortion public statements, including lectures to anti-abortion groups and her participation in a paid ad calling for Roe v. Wade to be overturned

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