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Senators Continue Squabble Over ACA, Abortion After Barrett Vote

Amid the posturing and pontificating around the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Thursday vote to advance Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation for the Supreme Court — a Senate floor vote is slated for Monday — healthcare was not neglected.

All 10 Democratic committee members boycotted the hearing, leaving Republicans to back Barrett’s nomination in a 12-0 vote.

During the hearings leading up to the vote, and in comments afterward on the Capitol’s steps, Democrats had framed Barrett’s confirmation as probably spelling doom for the Affordable Care Act and legal abortion.

For their part, Republicans scoffed.

Committee chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) underscored his support for Barrett’s right to hold religious beliefs while serving on the Supreme Court.

It’s okay to “be a complete person,” he said. “It’s okay to be pro-life…. She embraces the pro-life cause in her personal life, but she understands that judging is not a cause; it is a process.”

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said Democrats’ warnings about the ACA were similarly misplaced.

The core of the Texas v. California lawsuit — which comes before the Supreme Court for oral arguments on Nov. 10 — is “very technical doctrine,” Cornyn said. “It doesn’t have anything to do with the merits of the Affordable Care Act. It has to do [with] whether you can sever the unconstitutional portion from the rest of the ACA, and that it will survive,” he said.

On the other hand, Cornyn’s comments on Thursday did not appear supportive of keeping the ACA. He noted that premiums have risen 57% in Texas in the last 6 years and that deductibles are high enough that families are “essentially self-insured.”

He charged that Democrats no longer want the ACA anyway and now want to impose a public option or “Medicare for All” — both of which he characterized as “a slippery slope toward a single payer system” that would ruin hospitals and healthcare providers.

Outside the Capitol, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Republicans are trying to achieve through the courts what they were unable to legislate: ACA repeal.

“And now if Senate Republicans confirm Judge Barrett — someone we all know is critical of decisions upholding the ACA — they could be on the brink of achieving their goal,” Schumer said.

  • Shannon Firth has been reporting on health policy as MedPage Today’s Washington correspondent since 2014. She is also a member of the site’s Enterprise & Investigative Reporting team. Follow

Source: MedicalNewsToday.com