A Texas judge has ruled that since there is no longer a “tax” for not enrolling in Obamacare, that the program is unconstitutional.
Liberal chief Justice John Roberts saved Obamacare years ago by declaring that the penalty was really a tax, even though Obama’s lawyers never made that claim. But, now that the “tax” is gone, Obamacare is no longer constitutional. There is no way this case doesn’t go to the Supreme Court and I am curious about how Roberts will save it this time.
The Trump administration is allowing people to continue to sign up for Obamacare. I am not crazy about that idea, but it’s not their fault and it would not be fair to stop the program until the court rules. Here is the real deal that is going to go down.
Anticipating that the court will rule that Obamacare is unconstitutional, Congress needs to build a replacement program and have it ready to put into place, should the court strike Obamacare down. But, the Democrats will never allow that to happen, because they really don’t care if tens of millions of Americans lose their insurance as long as they get a campaign issue out of it.
They will do this by pushing the 32 trillion dollar Medicare for All program championed by the far left, that Democrats know will never pass.
U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth agreed with a coalition of Republican states led by Texas that he had to eviscerate the Affordable Care Act, the signature health-care overhaul by President Barack Obama, after Congress last year zeroed out a key provision — the tax penalty for not complying with the requirement to buy insurance.
“Today’s ruling is an assault on 133 million Americans with preexisting conditions, on the 20 million Americans who rely on the ACA’s consumer protections for health care, and on America’s faithful progress toward affordable health care for all Americans,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a statement, leading a chorus of Democrats who blasted the decision. A spokeswoman for Becerra vowed a quick challenge to O’Connor’s ruling.
Texas and an alliance of 19 states argued to the judge that they’ve been harmed by an increase in the number of people on state-supported insurance rolls. They claimed that when Congress last year repealed the tax penalty for the so-called individual mandate, it eliminated the U.S. Supreme Court’s rationale for finding the ACA constitutional in 2012.
Usually, Congress writes a provision into every bill that if one part of the bill is found to be unconstitutional, the rest of the bill stands. That was not done this time and if a part is unconstitutional, the entire bill is dead.