How to Kill Pre-existing Condition Protections

By Patricia Salber MD, MBA (The Doctor Weighs In)

Jeff Sessions’ letters to Congress outline the Trump Administration’s convoluted strategy to have the individual mandate and pre-existing condition protections declared unconstitutional.

In identical letters to Speaker Ryan and Leader Pelosi with the express approval of the President of the United States, Attorney General Jefferson B. Sessions III outlined the reasoning the Department of Justice is using in its refusal to defend a legal assault, Texas v. United States, on three key provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

It is a bit convoluted but stick with me. There’s going to be a lot of spin once this story finally breaks through the barrage of news about North Korea, the G7, and the latest on the Mueller investigation. It will be important to understand what is being done and why.

There are three ACA provisions at risk and there are four major prongs to the Administration ’s strategy — three of them are aimed at declaring the individual mandate unconstitutional and other one tries to inextricably tie pre-existing condition protections to the constitutionality of the mandate. The provisions are:

• The individual mandate to purchase health insurance or pay a penalty