Democrats Have a Secret Weapon to Save Obamacare

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Yesterday I teased you about a “secret weapon” that can save Obamacare. Here it is:

  • Pre-existing conditions

Obamacare requires insurance companies to insure anyone who wants coverage, no matter what kind of pre-existing conditions they have. It also requires them to sell this coverage at the same price they sell to everyone else. Unless Republicans go nuclear—by eliminating the filibuster or threatening to fire the Senate parliamentarian—they can’t repeal this without a bunch of Democratic votes. And as long as the pre-existing conditions ban is in place, repealing Obamacare, with or without a replacement, will wreck the individual insurance market.

I mean this literally: Most likely, every insurance company in America would simply exit the market. Something like 7 percent of Americans would flatly have no source of insurance. This is political suicide, and Republicans know it. Hopefully, Democrats know it too.

My full story about this is here. I recommend that everyone read it. If Democrats want to save health care reform, this is the hammer that will allow them to do it.

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We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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