Pelosi slams Trump executive order on pre-existing conditions: It ‘isn’t worth the paper it’s signed on’

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday took aim at an executive order from President Trump which he has claimed will ensure coverage for people with pre-existing conditions.

“President Trump’s bogus executive order on pre-existing conditions isn’t worth the paper it’s signed on. It is an insult to every family with someone with a pre-existing condition that President Trump thinks he can get away with this farce while he races a justice onto the Supreme Court to strike down the lifesaving protections enshrined into law by the Affordable Care Act,” Pelosi said in a statement.

“For his entire Administration, President Trump has used every tool and every chance he gets to weaken or rip away protections for people with pre-existing conditions,” she continued. “If President Trump cared at all about people with pre-existing conditions, he would drop his lawsuit to overturn the Affordable Care Act in the middle of a pandemic.”

The president and the White House have argued that the order will protect people with pre-existing conditions. However, while the White House has not released the text of the order, it has said it states that protecting those people is the government’s policy, which does not have force of law in and of itself. The administration has also continued to back a lawsuit that would undo the entirety of the Affordable Care Act, including its protections for people with pre-existing conditions.

“Democrats will continue our fight to defend and strengthen pre-existing condition protections from Congress to the Courts,” Pelosi added.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden similarly blasted the order Thursday.

“They are arguing to strip millions of Americans of health care in the middle of a pandemic,” Biden wrote in a tweet. “We can’t let him win.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) expressed similar sentiments, also invoking the ongoing lawsuit.

President Trump is lying to you about his “executive order.”

Protections for pre-existing conditions are the law.

The threat to these protections is from President Trump and the Republicans suing to end them.

We’re fighting to stop it.

— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) September 25, 2020