Obamacare, Struck Down in Court, Is Almost Certain to Survive – By Kevin Fitzpatrick (vanityfair.com) / Dec 15 2018
A Texas judge ruled the entire law was unconstitutional—but a higher court is likely to overrule him.
The Affordable Care Act faces yet another challenge in court after a Texas judge declared the entire law unconstitutional on Friday. U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, responding to a lawsuit brought by 20 Republican-led states, ruled that the individual mandate was unconstitutional, since Congress had gotten rid of the penalty for failing to obtain insurance coverage. Instead of limiting his decision to the mandate, however, O’Connor also ruled that every other component of the A.CA.—including popular provisions such as Medicaid expansion and protection for people with pre-existing conditions—must therefore be scrapped, too.
In theory, the ruling could threaten the insurance coverage of some 20 million Americans. In practice, however, it isn’t likely to stick. The district judge issued a declaratory judgment, not an injunction, effectively meaning Obamacare remains the law of the land, for now. The White House has already said that Obamacare will continue to be enforced “pending the appeal process.” And it’s too late into the year for insurance companies to deny coverage for people with pre-existing conditions through 2019.
More important, the local ruling will almost certainly be appealed by Democratic-led states like California. Failing that, the ruling could be challenged by the Fifth Circuit or the Supreme Court, which would also likely reverse the decision. “The ACA has already survived more than 70 unsuccessful repeal attempts and withstood scrutiny in the Supreme Court,” California attorney general Xavier Becerra declared confidently. “Today’s misguided ruling will not deter us: our coalition will continue to fight in court for the health and wellbeing of all Americans.”
That didn’t stop President Donald Trump from declaring victory on Twitter (“ObamaCare was just ruled UNCONSTITUTIONAL by a highly respected judge in Texas”). Among legal experts, however, the preservation of the A.C.A. appears to be a foregone conclusion. As University of Michigan law professor Nicholas Bagley suggested on Twitter, “it’s above the judge’s pay grade to invalidate the entire ACA without any possibility of review.” More respected jurists are widely expected to see things differently.
In the short term, then, Obamacare is most likely safe. In the longer term, however, Friday’s ruling suggests that Republicans won’t stop looking for ways to invalidate President Obama’s signature health care law—giving more ammunition to Democrats pushing Medicare For All.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/12/obamacare-repeal-texas-individual-mandate
