California rolls back reopening plans as coronavirus cases climb – live

Jerome Powell, the new chair of the Federal Reserve, is slated to tell Congress tomorrow that the battle with Covid-19 and its economic fallout will be long and hard-fought.

“The path forward for the economy is extraordinarily uncertain and will depend in large part on our success in containing the virus.” He adds: It’s “hard to capture in words” the lives upended.

On Monday the House passed in a vote of 234-179 the most significant expansion of the Affordable Care Act since its inception in 2010.

The vote for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Enhancement Act was largely symbolic as it is unlikely to pass in the Senate. Even if it did, Donald Trump would immediately veto it, the White House said on Monday.

The hours of debate before the vote allowed Democrats to point out, again and again, that the Trump administration is seeking to invalidate the ACA in a lawsuit before the Supreme Court that was initiated by a group of Republican attorneys general who contend the entire law is unconstitutional.

“As lives are shattered by the coronavirus, the protections of the Affordable Care Act are more important now, more than ever,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Noting that both Trump and congressional Republicans promise to preserve the law’s protections for people with preexisting medical conditions, she said: “Oh really? Then why are you in the United States Supreme Court to overturn them?”

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