Sen. Chris Murphy Discusses Healthcare

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: You heard us set this up as the Democrats and the president vowing to make health care the issue and for each of your parties to claim to be the party of health care. What do you make of that as a winning issue for the next election?

CHRIS MURPHY, U.S. SENATE DEMOCRAT: Well, you know, no politician needs to make health care the issue, it is the dominant issue when you’re talking to constituents. When I’m back in Connecticut, everybody is talking about how their health care is more expensive than ever before, drug prices are spiraling, the opioid epidemic is out of control. And it seems that President Trump and administration are just trying to make it worse. You know, I mean, everybody knew that the Affordable Care Act was imperfect but when the Trump administration or Republicans tried to get rid of it without any replacement, without any idea as to what comes next, it exposed the fact that Republicans were really pretty ideological about this, they just wanted a bill with the president — with President Obama’s signature gone and didn’t have any idea what to do next. And President Trump, of course, has been really consistent. Since he got into office, he has been doing everything he can from the White House to try to destroy the Affordable Care Act, and this week was the latest development. He instructed all of his lawyers, the Department of Justice, to go to court to try to invalidate immediately the entire Affordable Care Act, that would mean 30 million people losing insurance overnight, that would mean everybody with (INAUDIBLE) and conditions having their rates checked up or losing insurance completely, and this was a change. It used to be that his lawyers were going to court to just try to get rid of some parts of the Affordable Care Act. Now, he wants the whole thing gone and again, has no plan to replace it. So, you know, the stakes are pretty high right now.

AMANPOUR: So, let’s put it in the president’s own words because he addressed this very issue today in Washington. Here’s what he’s saying about this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We’re coming up with plans. We have a lawsuit right now going where phase one of the lawsuit. terminates Obamacare, essentially terminate Obamacare, you know that that’s the Texas lawsuit. We think it will be upheld and we think it will do very well in the Supreme Court. And if the Supreme Court rules that Obamacare is out, we will have a plan that’s far better than Obamacare.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: OK. So, there are two issues there. The last time it came up to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act. Isn’t that right? And do you believe that the Supreme Court will seek to throw it out if it comes up again?

MURPHY: So, the exact same five justices that up held the suit — the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act are still there. So, you would suppose that nothing would change. Now, there are a couple, you know, political operatives on the Supreme Court right now in the (INAUDIBLE) Brett Kavanaugh who were going to try to come up with new and novel arguments to strike down the Affordable Care Act. So, I don’t think we should assume it’s completely safe.