October 7, 2020

“They’re Coming for You”: Kamala Harris Slams Trump and Pence on Preexisting Conditions

Jack Gruber/Pool/CNP/Zuma

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Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) took multiple opportunities during Wednesday night’s vice presidential debate to call attention to the Trump administration’s attempts to undo Obamacare and strip 23 million Americans of their health insurance.

“If you have a preexisting condition—heart disease, diabetes, breast cancer—they’re coming for you,” Harris said. “If you love someone who has a preexisting condition, they’re coming for you. If you are under the age of 26 on your parents’ coverage, they’re coming for you.”

President Trump has repeatedly claimed that he is going to somehow protect coverage for people with preexisting conditions while actively chipping away at the legislation that enacted those protections in the first place. He’s now supporting a lawsuit seeking to eliminate Obamacare altogether. After the election, the Supreme Court will decide whether changes that Trump’s tax law made to the Affordable Care Act invalidate the landmark health legislation in its entirety. The appointment of Amy Coney Barrett, who has criticized Obamacare in the past, could potentially tilt the Supreme Court toward the side of the Republican attorneys general who filed the Trump-backed lawsuit.

Vice President Mike Pence replied to Harris, “President Trump and I have a plan to improve health care and protect preexisting conditions for every American.” Trump has repeatedly promised to come up with a replacement for Obamacare—but he’s never even come close.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

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