Pence said WHAT?

So, Trump says to himself, there’s a novel virus cutting a swathe through the country, what should I do? Take away people’s health insurance, that’s what.

In a filing with the U.S. Supreme Court, the Trump administration has reaffirmed its position that the Affordable Care Act in its entirety is illegal because Congress eliminated the individual tax penalty for failing to purchase medical insurance.

Solicitor General Noel Francisco, the government’s chief advocate before the Supreme Court, said in a brief that the other provisions of Obamacare are impossible to separate from the individual mandate and that “it necessarily follows that the rest of the ACA must also fall.”

Shortly after the brief appeared on the court’s docket late Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement: “President Trump and the Republicans’ campaign to rip away the protections and benefits of the Affordable Care Act in the middle of the coronavirus crisis is an act of unfathomable cruelty.”

In a speech on the lawsuit Thursday, Vice President Pence said he was proud of the ACA and denounced the administration’s position. “It’s cruel, it’s heartless, and it’s callous,” he said.

Wait, what? Pence said that? What’s happening? I literally had to read that paragraph three times to be sure I wasn’t misreading it. Since when does Pence denounce an administration position? Since when does he care that an administration position is cruel, heartless, and callous?

Eliminating the ACA would end medical insurance for more than 20 million Americans. It would also end widely popular provisions of the law, such as extending parents’ coverage to children up to the age of 26 and prohibiting insurance companies from denying coverage based on preexisting conditions.

Normal prosperous democracies want their people to have health insurance, and make laws accordingly. The US is not that kind of democracy.

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