WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the U.S. Senate Health Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, on Thursday launched a campaign inviting people in Connecticut to share their health care stories and describe how they would be impacted if Republicans are successful in their attempts to gut the Affordable Care Act. Constituents are invited to visit murphy.senate.gov/shareyourstory to share their experiences. Murphy released a video on social media announcing the campaign. 

“The Trump administration is trying to take health care away from people in Connecticut and it’s up to Congress to stop it. If this lawsuit is successful, it would strip health insurance that millions of Americans depend on and give insurance companies a free pass to go back to the days of denying care to people just because they get sick. The Trump administration and Republicans in Congress need to hear the real life stories about what this disaster of a lawsuit would do to families in Connecticut. I’m collecting their stories to make sure their voices get heard,” said Murphy. 

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that over 1 million more people were uninsured in 2018 than were in 2016. Last year, 18 Republican Attorneys General—led by Texas—sued the federal government, arguing that protections for those with pre-existing conditions in the Affordable Care Act are unconstitutional. The Trump administration took the unprecedented step to side with the partisan lawsuit, threatening health insurance coverage for over 20 million Americans. In December, Murphy blasted the ruling by U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, who threw out the Affordable Care Act in its entirety, throwing the American health care system into chaos. More than 130 million Americans have a pre-existing condition, including more than 520,000 in Connecticut, and this lawsuit jeopardizes the health insurance they depend on. The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments in this lawsuit in July.

###