WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, on Tuesday discussed the critical health care issues that hang in the balance with the next justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. President Trump pledged to only appoint justices who will overturn the Affordable Care Act and outlaw its protections for people with preexisting conditions. On Monday, Murphy announced he will oppose the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh.

“I think we can be pretty sure of how Judge Kavanaugh is going to rule. His hostility to the Affordable Care Act in his writings, his inclusion on lists of groups that worked for years to undo these protections and the clear signal from the president that he was only going to pick individuals for the court that would unwind the Affordable Care Act tells you how high the stakes are. The Supreme Court can take away your health care if you have any of these diseases. And the likelihood that they will take away your health care if you have any of these preexisting conditions is radically increased if Judge Kavanaugh is confirmed,” said Murphy.

“This debate over the future of preexisting condition protections for people in this country, 130 million who have preexisting conditions, needs to be at the center of this conversation over Brett Kavanaugh's nomination,” added Murphy.

The full text of Murphy’s remarks is below:

Thank you very much, Mr. President. Mr. President, I come to the floor to talk for a few quick moments about what the stakes are as we begin this debate over a new swing vote on the United States Supreme Court. This is a fairly simple chart listing off a number of preexisting conditions that tens of millions of Americans have and what it says is that the Supreme Court could take away your health care if you have a history of cancer, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, pregnancy, lupus, Parkinson’s. The list goes on.

The reason for this is that the new priority for those that oppose the Affordable Care Act and the protections that are built in it for Americans who are sick or have ever been sick, the new strategy is to use the court system as a reason to try to invalidate the protections in the law for people with preexisting conditions, protections, by the way, that Republicans said that they supported during the debate over the Affordable Care Act. The case is currently before the district court level. It's Texas v. United States, and it has drawn interest because of an exceptional decision by the Trump administration. The Trump administration has decided to weigh in on behalf of the petitioners, abandoning the traditional role of the executive to defend a statute. Traditionally an executive will defend a statute regardless of whether they support it or not because who will support the statute if not the United States government. In this case the Trump administration is going to court to argue that the United States congress cannot, under the constitution, provide protection to people with preexisting condition against discrimination and rate increases are from insurance companies. 

Now, this should freak out the tens of millions of Americans who have preexisting conditions because without the protection that's in the law today, health care will be unaffordable and unavailable to the over 100 million Americans who have any history of disease. Now, given the importance that the Trump administration has placed on this case by weighing in this exceptional, unprecedented way on behalf of those who are trying to pull apart protections of people with preexisting conditions, we have to expect, we have to prepare for the fact that this case may move from the district court to the appellate court and eventually to the Supreme Court. And if it does, this seat that we are about to debate will likely will potentially be the deciding vote as to whether Americans in this country who have preexisting conditions will continue to be able to get health care.

And so I just wanted to come to the floor, as we start to set the table for this conversation, to make very clear what the stakes are. The Trump administration has taken the exceptional position of arguing against people with preexisting conditions saying that Congress cannot, by law, protect people with preexisting conditions. President Trump, as a candidate, made it very clear that his priority was to put justices on the court who would correct for the fatal flaw of John Roberts. He identified that fatal flaw as John Roberts defense of the Affordable Care Act. He made a promise that he wouldn't make that decision again. He would not put somebody on the court who would vote to uphold parts of the Affordable Care Act.

You've got to take the president at his word. Most of the things he said he would do as president of the United States when he was a candidate he has done. A lot of folks here didn't take him seriously. Didn't think he would really try to unwind NATO, didn't think he would really try to ban Muslims from the United States, didn't think he would pursue this idea of the wall. He did all those things. Let's take his word when he says he will not support a Supreme Court that will uphold the Affordable Care Act. And the case that is moving up to the Supreme Court today is a case that would take away protections for people with preexisting conditions. Second, he essentially outsourced the decision over who would be his nominee to these two political groups, the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation. Now we know where the Heritage Foundation is on the Affordable Care Act. They have made it their mission over the course of the last seven years to try to destroy the Affordable Care Act. They have essentially written the legislation that has been put before this congress on a variety of occasions to try to replace the Affordable Care Act with something that provides no protections for people with these illnesses. But the Federalist Society is in this game too of trying to attack the Affordable Care Act. And in one case, one of the main judicial attacks on the Affordable Care Act, one of the lead counsels of record was a Federalist Society member and 24 other Federalist Society members signed and filed am cuss briefs in support of this judicial attack against the Affordable Care Act and the protections for preexisting conditions. And so the Heritage Foundation and federalist society have been in the business of trying to take away protections with preexisting conditions from the beginning of this fight.

When you outsource the selection of the Supreme Court justice to those groups, you know what you are going to get. You are going to get a justice who is going to vote to unwind these protections, and you don't have to do that kind of super investigating because the president already effectively told you he was going to appoint somebody who would remedy the fatal sin of John Roberts, which was to uphold at least an essential tenet of the Affordable Care Act.

I understand what Senator Cornyn is saying. You know, we should just accept the nominee when he comes before the judiciary committee isn't going to answer any questions and that we shouldn't assume anything that we don't know. But we have some pretty good evidence thus far. In addition, we have Judge Kavanaugh's writings. Judge Kavanaugh's attacks in his judicial opinions on the Affordable Care Act. 

Seven Sky is a really interesting case that came before the DC circuit court. Essentially in the end it upheld the constitutionality of the individual mandate. Judge Kavanaugh dissent -- Judge Kavanaugh dissented. And in that dissent, it was interesting, people should read it. In his dissent, he goes out of his way to suggest that congress has gone far afield from its constitutional limitations in adopting the Affordable Care Act. He writes in his dissent that the individual mandate is unprecedented on the federal level in American history and predicting that by upholding the mandate it would usher in a significant expansion of congressional authority with no obvious principle limit. Those are extraordinary words. It's interesting because if you read the dissent, it, in fact, hints that ultimately the individual mandate can be upheld as a tax, and so I want to acknowledge the subtleties in it. That it would have a significant expansion of congressional authority with no limit. The obvious limit is the constitution and the idea that judges would decide what the principled limit is other than the constitution I think is something that should be part of our debate here.

The fact that Judge Kavanaugh went out of his way to talk about his fears as to how broad the Affordable Care Act may be in addition to his inclusion on the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation list and in addition to Trump's very clear signaling that he is only going to appoint a judge who is willing to overturn the Affordable Care Act tells you that if you have any of these conditions you are in the crossfire right now. 130 million people in America have preexisting conditions -- 130 million people. You should take a few of these just to give you a sense of the scope of the threat. There are more than 15.5 million cancer survivors in the United States today. 23 million Americans have been diagnosed with diabetes. There's about 100 million adults who have high blood pressure, about 100 million more that have high cholesterol. 26 million that have asthma, 44 million Americans have mental illness, 44,000 diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, 28 million Americans have been diagnosed with heart disease. Without the protections of the Affordable Care Act, if you have these diagnoses, you won't likely be offered health care, that's what happened prior to the protections for people with preexisting conditions. You weren't even offered a plan if you had some of these conditions, but if you were offered the conditions, you were offered them at rates that were unaffordable. Here's some data based off of CMS.'s calculations around operated risk adjustment methodology. They say that for folks that have diabetes without complication the increase in rates without protections for people with preexisting conditions could be about $5,600 a year. If you have a drug dependence or addiction, the increase could be $20,000 a year. If you if you had a heart attack, your se could be $60,000 a year. If you have metastatic cancer, you could be paying a $3,500% premium. That's $140,000 in additional surcharge per year. Obviously, no one can afford that. That's why if you have a history of metastatic cancer, you're not going offered insurance unless you have that protection. Those are the mistakes.

I want to make people understand we're going to have a big debate over what Judge Kavanaugh will mean for the future of reproductive choice in this country, women's access to contraception. Those are really, really important debates. But I want to make everybody understand that this case is coming. Texas v. United States is moving through the court system. It is moving through the court system in part because the Trump administration is trying to get the judicial branch to invalidate protections for people with preexisting conditions despite the fact that the president told us he liked that part of the law. He has now instructed his judicial department, instructed the attorney general's office to try to strip away protections for people who have high cholesterol, mental illness, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis. And it may be this seat on the Supreme Court is going to decide that case.

I think we can be pretty sure of how Judge Kavanaugh is going to rule, his hostility to the Affordable Care Act in his writings, his inclusions on lists of groups that worked for years to undo these protections and the clear signal from the president that he was only going to pick individuals for the court that would unwind the Affordable Care Act tells you how high the stakes are. The Supreme Court can take away your health care if you have any of these diseases. And that likelihood that they will take away your health care if you have any of these preexisting conditions is radically increased if Judge Kavanaugh is confirmed.

I announced last night I will oppose his nomination. I will down on the floor at length talking about the many reasons why this body should reject this nomination. At the outset I wanted to make clear that this debate over the future of preexisting condition protections for people in this country, 130 million who have preexisting conditions need to be at the center of this conversation over Brett Kavanaugh's nomination. I yield the floor.

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