When President Trump Arrives in NC, Tillis & Burr Should Call on Him to Drop Legal Effort to Gut ACA

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

August 24, 2020

When President Trump Arrives in NC, Tillis & Burr Should Call on Him to Drop Legal Effort to Gut ACA

Trump Administration Has Asked Supreme Court to Wipe Out ACA, Including Pre-Existing Conditions Protections

Raleigh, N.C. - Today, Piedmont Rising called on Senators Thom Tillis and Richard Burr to use the occasion of President Trump’s visit to North Carolina to stand up and speak out against the Trump administration’s on-going legal efforts to wipe out the Affordable Care Act. Earlier this summer, the administration filed a brief with the Supreme Court to strike down the ACA in its entirety.

Among other arguments, the administration’s brief specifically calls on the Court to gut provisions of the law protecting Americans with pre-existing conditions from being denied coverage. If successful, health care costs would spike and more than 600,000 North Carolinians could lose coverage.

“The President’s visit to North Carolina is the perfect opportunity for Senator Tillis and Senator Burr to finally speak out against the administration’s legal efforts to wipe out the ACA, including protections for 1.7 million North Carolinians with a pre-existing condition,” said Piedmont Rising Executive Director Casey Wilkinson. “If the administration is successful, health insurance premiums will spike, millions will lose coverage and prescription drugs will become even more unaffordable -- all in the middle of an on-going global pandemic. Tillis and Burr owe it to North Carolinians to stand up to this administration’s efforts to gut their health care.”

Background:

• If the ACA is struck down, an estimated 607,000 North Carolinians would lose coverage, an estimate that has increased by 100,000 since the start of the pandemic

• More than 1.7 million non-elderly North Carolinians, 28 percent of the state, have a pre-existing condition that would allow insurance companies to deny them coverage if the ACA is struck down

• Senators Tillis and Burr have each voted at least seven times to repeal the Affordable Care Act in its entirety

• Senators Tillis and Burr voted for the 2017 GOP tax legislation that amended the ACA and paved the way for this most recent lawsuit

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