Apparently repealing Obamacare could violate international law

[Stonepounder]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/apparently-repealing-obamacare-could-violate-international-law/2017/04/25/2794a77c-29f4-11e7-b605-33413c691853_story.html

We’ve already seen that repealing Obamacare is politically perilous. Now there’s a new complication: It may also violate international law.

The United Nations has contacted the Trump administration as part of an investigation into whether repealing the Affordable Care Act without an adequate substitute for the millions who would lose health coverage would be a violation of several international conventions that bind the United States. It turns out that the notion that “health care is a right” is more than just a Democratic talking point.

A confidential, five-page “urgent appeal” from the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights in Geneva, sent to the Trump administration, cautions that the repeal of the Affordable Care Act could put the United States at odds with its international obligations. The Feb. 2 memo, which I obtained Tuesday, was sent to the State Department and expresses “serious concern” about the prospective loss of health coverage for almost 30 million people, which could violate “the right to social security of the people in the United States.”

The letter urges that “all necessary interim measures be taken to prevent the alleged violations” and asks that, if the “allegations” proved correct, there be “adequate measure to prevent their occurrence as well as to guarantee the accountability of any person responsible.”

3rd world country here we come.

[Sculpin Beauregard]

1. No, this is great news! They've been put on notice.

[VigilantG]

2. Awesome!

[progressoid]

3. Like republicans give a shit what the UN thinks.

[dweller]

4. check this, from the article

OHCHR requested that copies of the letter be shared with majority and minority leadership in both chambers of Congress and proposed that “the wider public should be alerted to the potential implications of the above-mentioned allegations.”

Apparently that didn’t happen. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s office and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer’s office said they didn’t receive the letter, and officials in House Speaker Paul D. Ryan’s and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s offices said Tuesday that they were unaware of it. The letter did make its way to the Department of Health and Human Services, where an employee leaked it to congressional Democratic leadership. A State Department spokesman said my inquiry was “the first I’m hearing of this.”

The Trump administration has shown its contempt for such considerations by failing to pass along the U.N. letter to congressional leaders. But you don’t have to care about international law to know that the essence of the OHCHR criticism is true: Taking away health coverage from millions without an adequate replacement is abject cruelty.

😡