By U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank)

It’s easy to forget that before the Affordable Care Act was signed into law in 2010, Americans who did not receive health insurance from their employers were at the mercy of insurance companies that could deny coverage, drop coverage or charge people more based on any pre-existing condition, their gender or age.

The ACA was far from perfect, but it did put in place a way for millions of Americans who couldn’t afford health insurance because of their income or age to sign up for quality, affordable care. Nearly 20 million Americans obtained coverage as a result, and the uninsured rate reached a historic low. Americans also gained new and important protections – requiring coverage for pre-existing conditions and eliminating caps on lifetime or annual coverage.

There’s no doubt we still have a long way to go in the fight for universal coverage, but instead of taking steps to build on the ACA’s successes and extend the reach of affordable care, the administration has embarked on an endless campaign to undermine and destroy the law, imperiling health care for millions who need it.

Since the moment he took office, President Trump and his allies in Congress have relentlessly worked to repeal, undermine and sabotage the ACA. They have used every tool at their disposal to pursue policies that would take away coverage, raise costs and undermine consumer protections. While some GOP members of Congress give lip service to maintaining these protections, they have consistently voted against requirements to cover pre-existing conditions and applauded plans by the Trump administration to sabotage the ACA by allowing companies to once again sell junk insurance policies that exclude basic coverage.

While their legislative tactics have faltered for now, they have again turned their efforts to the courts. The most recent example is Texas v. United States, a lawsuit brought by Republican attorneys general from 20 states to overturn the ACA. These officials say that when Congress eliminated the penalty for not having health insurance as part of last year’s tax bill, lawmakers rendered the entire health law unconstitutional, a claim that legal observers on both sides say is patently false. If Congress intended to repeal the ACA by repealing the so-called individual mandate, it would have done so. Asking the courts to do what Republicans couldn’t do in Congress, after a huge public outcry, is simply anti-democratic.

Despite the flimsy legal argument, the Trump administration announced that it was abandoning its obligation to defend the ACA in this suit; instead it filed a brief urging the court to strike down protections for pre-existing conditions. This lawsuit could be the most dangerous effort to destabilize the American healthcare system yet.

This should not be a partisan issue. Changing the way our nation delivers health care is not a simple undertaking and improving our health care infrastructure is still a work in progress, but I am pleased that we have seen an unprecedented decrease in the number of uninsured Americans, protections for the most vulnerable among us and signs that the growth in medical spending is slowing – a major objective of the ACA. There are other ideas on the table that deserve consideration to build on the progress of the ACA, among them Medicare for all, but we should be talking about how we can expand quality and affordable coverage to more Americans, not how we can take it away from millions.

We have stopped the GOP’s repeal attempts before, and I fear we will soon have to do it again. It’s imperative we not remain silent on just how much Americans have to lose if Trump and his allies successfully use their power and the courts to take away people’s health care.

The ACA has already delivered on its promise of putting medical care within reach for millions who couldn’t access it before. There is a great deal we can and should do to improve the law, but with the GOP in Congress unwilling to do anything but repeal it, we have never had the opportunity to make changes that would bring down costs for all Americans. We should do so now.