Approaching the anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, DNC Rapid Response Spokesperson Aida Ross released the following statement: 

“Donald Trump and his MAGA Republican allies have already made it clear they are hellbent on taking away women’s access to reproductive care — and they’ll use every available avenue to do it, including killing the Affordable Care Act. Thanks to the ACA, more women than ever have access to birth control and the kinds of basic reproductive care that they’d previously been denied because of preexisting conditions or financial barriers. But Trump and his MAGA minions’ plan to ‘terminate’ the ACA would endanger women’s health and rip away reproductive freedom as part of their extreme agenda. The fate of Americans’ health care is on the ballot this November, and voters won’t let Donald Trump once again attempt to deny millions of women access to essential care.” 

For over a decade, the Affordable Care Act has helped millions of women across the country gain access to health care — including reproductive care. 

Planned Parenthood: “By expanding health coverage and access to birth control to millions, Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been a game changer for women. Before the ACA, millions of women were denied coverage because of so-called ‘pre-existing conditions’ like breast cancer, pregnancy, or domestic abuse; some were forced to pay more for insurance just because they were women; and some were only allowed limited plans that excluded coverage for any health concerns they already had.”

Kaiser Family Foundation: “A new KFF review of more than three dozen studies published between April 2021 and June 2023 finds that Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act is associated with beneficial effects on a range of sexual and reproductive health outcomes.”

American Journal of Public Health: “The ACA was associated with expanded insurance coverage and improvements in access to care for women of reproductive age, particularly for those with lower incomes.”

Let’s be clear: Ripping away access to affordable care — including reproductive care — is extremely unpopular with the American people.

Center for American Progress: “According to new estimates from the Center for American Progress, 135 million people under age 65, or about half of nonelderly people, have a preexisting condition that an insurer could use to discriminate against them if they ever sought coverage through the individual market in the absence of ACA protections.”

Jon Favreau: “If Trump wins, 40 million people could lose their health care, and insurance companies would get to deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. If Biden wins, that…won’t happen.”

NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll: “Thirteen years after the Affordable Care Act was signed into law, more than eight in ten Americans (83%) either agree or strongly agree that all Americans have a basic right to healthcare coverage.”

19th News: “Abortion bans are unpopular. Republicans are passing them anyway.”

“With abortion bans becoming increasingly unpopular, Republican-led statehouses are walking a delicate line: Trying to advance bills that would restrict access to the procedure without drawing attention, circumventing normal processes to cram new policies through as legislative sessions come to a close.”

Navigator Research: “A majority of constituents in battleground districts believe Republicans are too extreme on the issue of abortion and are far more extreme than Democrats on the issue.”

Donald Trump has a shameful record of ripping away reproductive care provided by the Affordable Care Act and continues to double down on his plans to get rid of the ACA in a second term. 

New York Times: “Trump Administration Rolls Back Birth Control Mandate” 

Vox: “In Trump’s first year in office, federal agencies weakened the ACA’s contraceptive mandate, allowing employers to deny birth control coverage if they had a religious or moral objection. Though the rollback was quickly tied up in the courts, dozens of employers signed separate settlements with the administration allowing them to refuse to cover birth control.

“Meanwhile, the Trump administration took aim at other federal programs designed to promote reproductive health and access to birth control, including Title X, which funds services like contraceptive counseling and cervical cancer screenings for low-income Americans. The result was that when Covid-19 hit, the country’s safety net was already weakened, with shuttered clinics and reduced hours making it harder to provide the low-cost care that Americans — many of them facing layoffs and loss of health insurance — needed more than ever.

“Then, in the midst of the pandemic, the Supreme Court dealt another blow to birth control access: The justices upheld the administration’s rollback of the ACA contraceptive mandate in July, a ruling that could mean the loss of contraceptive coverage for 126,000 American workers.”

Rolling Stone: “Inside the MAGA Plan to Attack Birth Control, Surveil Women and Ban the Abortion Pill”

Associated Press: “Trump remaking federal policy on women’s reproductive health”

“Step by methodical step, the Trump administration is remaking government policy on reproductive health — moving to limit access to birth control and abortion and bolstering abstinence-only sex education.”

Just like Trump, MAGA Mike Johnson is an anti-abortion extremist who has a yearslong record of trying to deny women access to essential health care — including those provided by the Affordable Care Act. 

HuffPost: “The same goes for the Affordable Care Act, which is quite a change from the many years Republicans talked endlessly about repealing it. They finally got their chance in 2017, while Donald Trump was president and Johnson, then new to Congress, voted yes. The effort famously failed, but not before provoking a massive political backlash that helped Democrats retake control of the House ― and, two years later, the presidency and Senate too.”

“But that doesn’t mean Republicans have made their peace with the 2010 health care law, or that they’ve given up on their ideas for replacing it with conservative alternatives. And you’ll find no better proof than in a 2019 proposal from the Republican Study Committee, which at the time Johnson was leading.

“The word ‘repeal’ appears only a few times, always in a narrow context. But the pieces of repeal legislation are all there.”

Mike Johnson: “🚨🚨BREAKING: Late yesterday, the La. Department of Health informed abortion facilities in our state that the right to life has now been RESTORED!  

Perform an abortion and get imprisoned at hard labor for 1-10 yrs & fined $10K-$100K.”

Jezebel: “[Johnson] expressed hope that Roe v. Wade would someday be overturned, railed against people supposedly ‘using abortion as birth control’ and appeared to blame school shootings on abortion: ‘When you break up the nuclear family, when you tell a generation of people that life has no value, no meaning, that it’s expendable, then you do wind up with school shooters.’”

And more of Trump’s MAGA Minions on the Hill are willing to revive his attempts to repeal the ACA. 

Axios: “A fresh repeal effort could be just as perilous, but Trump’s continued fixation with the law could put pressure on Republican lawmakers to make another run at it if the GOP gains full control of Washington next year. … Two top Senate Republicans signaled they could be open to a revived effort.”

“‘I think Obamacare has been one of the biggest deceptions on the American people,’ said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). ‘I mean just look at your health care premiums.’”

“Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), who’s in line to run the Finance Committee if the GOP retakes the Senate, said he’s open to plans that were similar to the 2017 repeal and replace bills.”