Hillary Clinton weighed in on the debate over replacing the late Supreme Court Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Wednesday, suggesting that President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) are hatching a “diabolical” plot to repeal the Affordable Care Act using the nation’s highest court.
Clinton echoed Democratic talking points, established earlier on Wednesday, demanding that health care be a front-and-center issue in the debate over whether to nominate and confirm a new Justice before the November presidential election.
A “faction [of Democrats], composed mainly of moderates, felt that members should stay squarely focused on the implications that the confirmation would have on health care—arguing that the public, especially in key swing states, would be moved by fears that a new court (and even the current eight-member one) could allow for the full destruction of the Affordable Care Act,” the Daily Beast reported.
Clinton easily segued into a discussion of health care during her appearance at the 2020 Texas Tribune Festival, Fox News reports.
“Ultimately this fight, it seems to me, is about health care,” Clinton mused. “Health care is literally before the court.”
“Trump and the Republicans led by Mitch McConnell have been trying to get rid of health care for years ever since President Obama passed the Affordable Care Act,” Clinton continued. “Let’s be sure we understand: What the Republicans are doing is rushing an appointment to the court to repeal the Affordable Care Act and strip away health care for many millions of Americans … The Democrats need to make that case.”
Oral arguments on the legality of the Affordable Care Act are scheduled for November 10th, NPR notes.
“A coalition of Republican state attorneys general, led by Texas, argued in February 2018 that the Republican-backed tax-cut law of December 2017 had rendered the ACA unconstitutional by reducing to zero the ACA’s penalty for not having insurance. They based their argument on Chief Justice John Roberts’ 2012 conclusion that the ACA was valid, interpreting that penalty as a constitutionally appropriate tax,” the outlet reports.
If Roberts continues to insist the law is constitutional, it could result in a 4-4 decision, unless Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was not on the court the last time it ruled on the ACA, sides with the Court’s more liberal justices. A conservative justice, the theory goes, could tip the scales in favor of striking the ACA, 5-4.
The Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said as much at an appearance on Tuesday.
“Why the president is in such a rush is because he’s in a hurry to overturn the Affordable Care Act. And he wants to do that,” she claimed. “The oral arguments start Nov. 10, a week after the election, and he wants to get a justice in there in time for that so they can hear the arguments and vote on it.”
Clinton called the plot “diabolical.”
“This could not be more diabolical,” she railed. “And I think that Democrats need to be absolutely clear that any vote for any Republican is literally a vote to cost you money to make your health care more expensive and maybe to eliminate the possibility you’ll be able to afford it at all.”