June 25, 2020/Press

While Attorney General Josh Stein Fights to Protect the ACA, Jim O’Neill is Silent As Republicans Try to Tear it Apart

Today, the Trump administration filed a brief to the Supreme Court arguing for the Affordable Care Act to be struck down.

A coalition of Republican Attorneys General also filed a brief to eliminate the Affordable Care Act and all its protections. One name conspicuously absent is Jim O’Neill, whose silence on the issue of the ACA has been deafening.

Attorney General Josh Stein has been a champion for the ACA and the more than 20 million Americans who have benefitted from it. Stein joined other Democratic Attorneys General as parties defending the ACA in its entirety.
 
“The Affordable Care Act protects more than 4 million North Carolinians with pre-existing conditions from discrimination by insurance companies, expands access to coverage for more than 500,000 people, and helps seniors save on drug costs,” Stein said at the filing of the brief. “All of these gains are at risk. That’s why I am taking the fight to defend people’s access to affordable health care to the United States Supreme Court.”

“If the Trump administration and Republican Attorneys General have their way, more than 4 million North Carolinians would lose their protections for pre-existing conditions and 1.8 million seniors on Medicare in our state would face higher drug prices,” said NCDP Communications Director Austin Cook. “Attorney General Stein has been an integral fighter against the Republicans’ attempts to rip apart the Affordable Care Act. The group bankrolling Jim O’Neill’s campaign is engaged in a reckless, partisan effort to dismantle this law. Whose side is O’Neill on – his big money backers or the people of North Carolina?”

The Supreme Court is expected to hear Texas v. California, the GOP lawsuit aimed at unraveling the ACA, this fall.