The good news this week is that Senator McConnell indicated the Senate has no plan to repeal the ACA again soon, despite a likely “yea” vote from newly-(re)minted Senator Jon Kyl who stepped in to temporarily fill Senator John McCain’s shoes. The bad news is that the ACA and over 130 million people with pre-existing conditions still risk losing their health care coverage due to a lawsuit against the ACA. Justice Reed O’Connor did not issue a ruling after last week’s four-hour hearing on the motion for a preliminary injunction. A ruling could come at any time and could vary between upholding the ACA and striking it down entirely, with lots of options in between. If the ACA were to be struck down, the decision would likely be appealed, potentially reaching the Supreme Court (hence the importance of our concerns about Kavanaugh) and a stay of the injunction would be requested by opponents (including Washington State’s Attorney General) to prevent anyone from suddenly losing their health coverage.

The public does not support the potential end of the ACA’s pre-existing conditions protections. In a recent Kaiser Health Tracking Poll, three-quarters of the public indicated that it is “very important” that the ACA pre-existing condition coverage protections remain law. Further, about half (52 percent) of the public are “very worried” that they or someone in their family will have to pay more for health insurance and four in ten (41 percent) are “very worried” they will lose their coverage if the Supreme Court overturns these protections. Responding to the political potency of the issue, Larry Levitt at the Kaiser Family Foundation recently said, “protecting people with preexisting conditions is now like motherhood and apple pie.”