Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) released the following statement in response to a federal judge’s ruling that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is unconstitutional.
“Today’s ruling is yet another example of this Administration and Republican leaders continuing down the path of ripping away health care coverage from millions of hardworking American families. The Affordable Care Act has helped provide health care coverage to thousands of hardworking Nevadans and put an end to despicable practices that allowed insurance companies to discriminate against Americans with preexisting conditions. Rather than trying to undermine healthcare for struggling families and seniors, and targeting a law that keeps college students on their parents health plans, Republican leaders and this President should be working with Democrats to strengthen the ACA where it has been successful, and fix healthcare where it has failed to deliver for families. I intend to fight for those families in Nevada and will do all I can to ensure that common sense, bipartisan legislation is taken up and passed to protect Americans access to quality, affordable healthcare.”
BACKGROUND:
After Congressional Republicans zeroed out the health insurance coverage requirement in their partisan tax legislation, the State of Texas and a coalition of 19 other states brought a lawsuit, Texas v. United States, challenging the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. Today’s decision could result in the undermining of the entire Affordable Care Act and the rollback of important protections for people with pre-existing conditions.
In July, Cortez Masto led the Senate Democratic caucus in urging Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Republicans to sign on to a resolution that would have authorized Senate Legal Counsel to intervene in the lawsuit on behalf of the Senate.