It’s already clear how the 2020 election campaign will be waged. Republicans will claim, falsely, that Democrats want to take away your hamburgers. Democrats will assert, truthfully, that Republicans want to take away your health care.
I guess we’ll see which argument wins.
On Monday, the Trump administration adopted a new position on a lawsuit over the Affordable Care Act, telling a federal appeals court that it now supported the complete elimination of the law, which has made health insurance available to many Americans who wouldn’t have it otherwise.
We have a very good idea what would happen if this lawsuit were to succeed. Around 20 million Americans would lose health coverage.
While Donald Trump reportedly thinks that attacking the A.C.A. will please his base, the greatest devastation would actually come in states that strongly supported Trump in 2016, believing his promises that he would defend health care. In West Virginia, for example, 160,000 people — 11 percent of nonelderly adults — would see their health insurance snatched away.
