CHIPA

For several years now, I've been pleading with the powers that be in Congress to pass two major healthcare reform bills:

(Yes, that's my own selfie with Sen. Warren from Netroots Nation, July 2014)

A few months ago, I noted a rather jarring shift in Sen. Elizabeth Warren's rhetoric when it comes to achieving universal heatlhcare coverage between her CNN Town Hall in March and her first official Presidential Debate appearance in late June.

In March, she gave a detailed, thoughtful, 5-minute answer which mentioned the importance of protecting the Affordable Care Act from Trump & the GOP's sabotage, including specifically calling out the looming #TexasFoldEm lawsuit which threatens to wipe out the entire law.

If you've been following me on Twitter lately, you know that I've grown increasingly frustrated with two aspects of the Democratic Presidential primary process in recent months:

• First, Sen. Elizabeth Warren's seeming 180-degree turnaround from her March stance on achieving universal healthcare coverage ("a lot of different pathways") to her more recent rhetoric (a simple, point-blank "I'm with Bernie on Medicare for All.") at the first debate in late June. At the time, I assumed this was simply due to the absurdly short time constraints and the terrible framing of the question by the moderators, but it's mid-August now and so far she seems to be sticking to her guns re. being 100% onboard with BernieCare.

• Second, the almost complete ghosting of the dangers to and fixes needed for the the ACA itself regardless of what the Next Big Thing ends up being (whether Medicare for All, Medicare for America, Choose Medicare, Medicare X, etc).

  The only one to even mention the Texas vs. Azar (#TexasFoldEm) lawsuit during any of the four debates held to date was Sen. Cory Booker...and the only major candidate who's focused on improving the ACA specifically has been Joe Biden...and even his plan would also include the creation of a federal public option which would complicate and delay the implementation of the other provisions of his plan nearly as much as the other overhaul bills on the table, as David Anderson notes:

If I could only ask one question of the 20-odd candidates vying for the Democratic nomination for President at the next debate coming up right here in Detroit, Michigan, here's how I would word it. I've customized it for each of the five major candidates (apologies to the rest of them):

Preface to each of the candidates:

"Earlier this month, oral arguments were heard by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals over a lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act filed by 20 Republican Attorneys General and fully supported by the Trump Administration.

"If the plaintiffs are successful and the ACA is struck down entirely, up to 20 million Americans would find themselves without healthcare coverage and tens of millions more with pre-existing conditions would lose critical protections, while states would lose hundreds of millions, or even billions of federal funding.

"Every Democratic candidate has come out in favor of significantly expanding publicly-funded healthcare coverage to some degree or another. Some want to build upon the Affordable Care Act. Some want to add a public option. Some want guaranteed universal coverage, and some are demanding universal single payer healthcare for everyone in the United States.

A little over a year ago, on March 21, 2018, Sen. Elizabeth Warren introduced a robust ACA 2.0 upgrade bill in the U.S. Senate called the "Consumer Health Insurance Protection Act", or CHIPA. It was largely a companion bill to a House version which had been introduced a couple of weeks earlier by Reps. Frank Pallone, Bobby Scott and Richard Neal, although there were some significant differences as well.

At the time, I noted that besides both bills including many "wish list" items which I've been hoping would be added to the ACA for several years now, Warren's Senate CHIPA bill was also noteworthy for one other reason: The list of cosponsors:

...Sanders is actually a co-sponsor of the Warren bill, as are Democratic Sens. Kamala Harris (Calif.), Maggie Hassan (N.H.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.) and Tammy Baldwin (Wis.).