Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, wrote to Attorney General William Barr on Monday asking him to reverse the Justice Department’s position on the Affordable Care Act, CNN reports.
Last Monday, in a filing with a federal appeals court, the DOJ sided with a federal judge in Texas who ruled that the ACA is invalid, a significant departure from the department’s position under former Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
"Rather than seeking to have the courts invalidate the ACA, the proper route for the Administration to pursue would be to propose changes to the ACA or to once again seek its repeal. The Administration should not attempt to use the courts to bypass Congress," Collins wrote to Barr in a letter on Monday.
"It is implausible that Congress intended protections for those with pre-existing conditions to stand or fall together with the individual mandate, when Congress affirmatively eliminated the penalty while leaving these and other critical consumer protections in place," she continued. "If Congress had intended to eliminate these consumer protections along with the individual mandate, it could have done so. It chose not to do so."
The senator added that the DOJ’s position on the issue "puts at risk not only critical consumer provisions" like the pre-existing conditions rule and "the Medicaid expansion, dependent coverage for young adults over age 26, coverage for preventive services, and the regulatory pathway for FDA approval of biosimilars."
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