Sen. Murphy: Millions of Americans Will Suffer Because Trump Continues to Sabotage Our Health Care System During Global Pandemic

WASHINGTON, April 22 -- Sen. Christopher Murphy, D-Connecticut, issued the following news release:

U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, joined former administrator at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Andy Slavitt and Protect Our Care's Executive Director Brad Woodhouse on Tuesday for a virtual roundtable discussion on President Trump's efforts to overturn the Affordable Care Act in Congress and the courts, and the need to address Americans' health care needs during a global pandemic.

On the Trump administration's failure to provide relief for Americans during COVID-19, Murphy said: "It's heartbreaking,...to watch this country go through this hopefully once in a lifetime health crisis and to have an administration sit on the sidelines, and not deploy the tools available to it to try to make sure that people can survive."

On the Republicans' continued sabotage of our health care system, Murphy said: "The fact of the matter is that, since the beginning of this administration, President Trump and his allies have been engaged in a campaign of sabotage against people's health care. They've tried several times to eradicate the Affordable Care Act and we all know that they had no plan to replace it. That would have eliminated coverage for 20 million Americans. And when they couldn't do that, because the American people stood up and wouldn't allow them to do it, they then used every bureaucratic and administrative tool at their disposal to try to undermine people's health care and to try to undermine the Affordable Care Act."

Murphy continued: "The Trump administration has taken steps that have resulted in about a million people losing their health insurance over the course of the last three years, and millions more being forced on the plans that aren't really health insurance. And so we started this crisis in a weakened position because the Trump administration had been successful in ending health insurance for thousands and thousands of Americans and undermining health insurance for many more."

Murphy also blasted the Trump administration's decision to not open a special enrollment period to allow more Americans to get covered, especially as millions lose their jobs as a result of COVID-19: "There are thousands of Americans that could have health care right now, that don't, simply because the President of the United States chose not to open enrollment in the Affordable Care Act and the only reason he chose to do that is because he is waging a campaign of destruction on the Affordable Care Act. He sees it as a victory if less people have health care through the Affordable Health Care Act, and that's why he didn't want to allow for people to sign up during this critical period, that's my belief at least."

A full transcript of Murphy's opening remarks can be found below:

"Thanks to the Protect our Care coalition for everything that you do to stand up for people's health care across the country.

"Yeah, it's heartbreaking,...to watch this country go through this hopefully once in a lifetime health crisis and to have an administration sit on the sidelines, and not deploy the tools available to it to try to make sure that people can survive.

"The fact of the matter is that, since the beginning of this administration, President Trump and his allies have been engaged in a campaign of sabotage against people's health care. They've tried several times to eradicate the Affordable Care Act and we all know that they had no plan to replace it. That would have eliminated coverage for 20 million Americans. And when they couldn't do that, because the American people stood up and wouldn't allow them to do it, they then used every bureaucratic and administrative tool at their disposal to try to undermine people's health care and to try to undermine the Affordable Care Act.

"And listen, let's be honest, they've been successful. The Trump administration has taken steps that have resulted in about a million people losing their health insurance over the course of the last three years, and millions more being forced on the plans that aren't really health insurance.

"And so we started this crisis in a weakened position because the Trump administration had been successful in ending health insurance for thousands and thousands of Americans and undermining health insurance for many more.

"Let's talk about those junk plans for a second Brad, because that's really important. The president opened up the ability for states to be able to sell junk insurance. Junk insurance plans are plans that look like insurance on the cover, but then when you open up the policy, you find out that they don't cover much. Most of them don't cover prescription drugs, a lot of them don't cover hospitalizations. There's, you know, one junk plan that, you know, covers you if you show up to the hospital Sunday through Thursday, but if you show up to the hospital on Friday or Saturday, you don't get insurance coverage.

"So those plans are being sold all over the country and for a lot of folks who get coronavirus and they get hospitalized, they're going to find out that they're not getting covered for by their plan and that they're going to be on the hook for huge costs. That's a huge exposure for the American people.

"But maybe most dangerous, and we'll talk about this, is that the administration had the ability to open up enrollment in the Affordable Care Act plans. They had the ability to say this is a crisis, we know people that don't have insurance right now are going to need it and so we're going to give a temporary ability for people to sign up for Affordable Care Act plans, these are the plans that have the subsidies attached to them that actually do cover what you need, and they didn't do that. The Trump administration decided not to open up enrollment for the Affordable Care Act and the result is that millions of Americans that didn't have coverage that want coverage in order to protect themselves and their family, from a potential COVID-19 diagnosis are left out in the cold.

"Now, there are 38 states, I think, that right now have their citizens on the federal exchange that President Trump controls. But there are another 12 states, like Connecticut that run our own exchange. In Connecticut, we decided to open enrollment. We decided to allow people at the beginning of this crisis to sign up for health care and we saw thousands of Connecticut residents that didn't have insurance sign up. Why, because they rightfully were very worried that they didn't have insurance and if they were diagnosed with COVID, that they were going to be out potentially tens of thousands of dollars in costs. So we saw thousands of Connecticut residents rush to sign up for health care. But across the country, in the majority of states, President Trump has denied families the ability to get health insurance at a moment when they badly, badly need it.

"So when I think of the vulnerabilities that are self-inflicted by this administration on the people of this country, vulnerabilities in our health care system that this administration chose to institute.

"We'll talk about a number of others, but I think in particular about these junk plans that more and more people have and when they go to try to get health care if they're diagnosed with COVID, they're going to find out that many of the things they need coverage for aren't covered.

"And then I also think about the fact that there are thousands of Americans that could have health care right now, that don't, simply because the President of the United States chose not to open enrollment in the Affordable Care Act and the only reason he chose to do that is because he is waging a campaign of destruction on the Affordable Care Act. He sees it as a victory if less people have health care through the Affordable Health Care Act, and that's why he didn't want to allow for people to sign up during this critical period, that's my belief at least."