BREAKING NEWS: Texas Judge has struck down Affordable Care Act, declared unconstituional

[mrclose]

U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor agreed with 19 States to declare the Affordable Care Act, (aka Obamacare) Unconstitutional because Congress revoked the tax penalty last year.

https://twitter.com/brianandrewmac2/status/1073747664309751815

[jmyrlefuller]

More:
https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2018-12-15/obamacare-core-provisions-ruled-unconstitutional-by-judge?__twitter_impression=true

[jmyrlefuller]

Not sure how legally sound this is, given the ramifications of a judicial precedent that makes laws behave like Christmas lights—one goes out, the whole strand goes out.

[Free Vulcan]

Good. Take it to SCOTUS again.

I don't know the solution, but using insurance as a welfare program for those with pre-existing conditions on the backs of healthy premium payers is a crime.

[skeeter]

Nice. By the time they finally shoot this Frankenstein in the head I’ll be eligible for Medicaid.

In the meantime I’m out about 15,000 per year because of that Kenyan bleep. While at the same time he’s worth about 150 million more. Whatta world.

[montanajoe]

DOA

An appeal will be filed enjoining enforcement of the ruling while an appeal is pending. The SC will refuse to hear the case, enforcement will remain enjoined, nothing will change.

The Roberts Court clearly signaled last time around that if there is to be a change to the ACA, the legislative branch must do it...the SC will not... 

[IsailedawayfromFR]

Good. Take it to SCOTUS again.

I don't know the solution, but using insurance as a welfare program for those with pre-existing conditions on the backs of healthy premium payers is a crime.

Whether is is a crime or not, it certainly cannot be called 'insurance'.  Insurance is to protect one from future calamity, not prior calamity.

[Elderberry]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/federal-judge-in-texas-rules-obama-health-care-law-unconstitutional/2018/12/14/9e8bb5a2-fd63-11e8-862a-b6a6f3ce8199_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.99fe4c11abdb

A federal judge in Texas threw a dagger on Friday into the Affordable Care Act, ruling that the entire health-care law is unconstitutional because of a recent change in federal tax law.

The opinion by U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor overturns all of the sprawling law nationwide.

A spokeswoman for California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D), who leads a group of states opposing the lawsuit, said that the Democratic defenders of the law are ready to challenge the ruling in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.

O’Connor is a conservative judge on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. He was appointed by President George W. Bush. O’Connor ruled once before on an issue arising from the ACA, issuing a nationwide injunction two years ago on an Obama administration rule that forbid providers of health care to discriminate based on gender identity.

And in June, the administration took the unusual step of telling the court that it will not defend the ACA against this latest challenge. Typically, the executive branches argues to uphold existing statutes in court cases.

In his 55-page opinion, O’Connor writes that the individual mandate is unconstitutional, saying that it “can no longer be fairly read as an exercise of Congress’ tax power.”

The judge also concludes that this insurance requirement “is essential to and inseverable from the remainder of the ACA.”

The midterm elections last month have altered the political map in the case. In Wisconsin, an incoming Democratic attorney general, Josh Kaul, campaigned on a promise to withdraw the state from the lawsut, but Wisconsin’s Republican legislature and outgoing Gov. Scott Walker (R) have tried in a lameduck session to block his ability to do that. In Maine, outgoing Gov. Paul LePage (R) joined the lawsuit, but the state attorney general’s office told the court last month that the governor did not have power to do so on his own.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

DOA

An appeal will be filed enjoining enforcement of the ruling while an appeal is pending. The SC will refuse to hear the case, enforcement will remain enjoined, nothing will change.

The Roberts Court clearly signaled last time around that if there is to be a change to the ACA, the legislative branch must do it...the SC will not... 

It did.  The article clearly indicated that the actions of Congress last year deleting the tax penalty caused this.

Do you believe that was an unconstitutional move by Congress to delete the penalty?  The judge apparently did not think so.

[libertybele]

DOA

An appeal will be filed enjoining enforcement of the ruling while an appeal is pending. The SC will refuse to hear the case, enforcement will remain enjoined, nothing will change.

The Roberts Court clearly signaled last time around that if there is to be a change to the ACA, the legislative branch must do it...the SC will not... 

It is not the job of the SCOTUS to rewrite law.  They are only to interpret the law to determine its constitutionality.

[montanajoe]

It did.  The article clearly indicated that the actions of Congress last year deleting the tax penalty caused this.

Do you believe that was an unconstitutional move by Congress to delete the penalty?  The judge apparently did not think so.

The SC IMO will not revisit the issue. The findings of the lower court are irrelevant if the SC does not take the case and enforcement is enjoined. To repeal the ACA Congress must do it on a clean vote, they could not do it with all three branches of the govment held by the GOP...

The Roberts Court will not repeal it..that is certain

[Oceander]

Anyone got a link to the opinion?

[IsailedawayfromFR]

The SC IMO will not revisit the issue. The findings of the lower court are irrelevant if the SC does not take the case and enforcement is enjoined. To repeal the ACA Congress must do it on a clean vote, they could not do it with all three branches of the govment held by the GOP...

The Roberts Court will not repeal it..that is certain

I do not understand the logic.

Congress passed a law which a federal judge declares unconstitutional after Congress (again) modified it.  You say  the verdict of the judge will stand on appeal as the higher court will not take it up.

Then you say enforcement is enjoined.  Why would the federal judge who ruled here do that if it is not taken up by a higher court?

[Elderberry]

Anyone got a link to the opinion?

@Oceander

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5629711-Texas-v-US-Partial-Summary-Judgment.html

[montanajoe]

I do not understand the logic...

I guess you missed my earlier post where I pointed out the District Court's ruling is DOA because an appeal will immediately be filed, and granted, enjoining enforcement of judges order pending appeal...that's the way the judicial system works.

The SC will not repeal Obamacare, the CJ is a Conservative judge, and was confirmed on that basis. Many believe the conservative label means the same politically and judicially it does not.

As an aside, to me its bizarre that the GOP has ran for years on the platform of SC judges not making law from the bench. They ran and some might conclude they won control of all three branches of government in 2016 based on the pledge to repeal Obamacare. They had  control  but  were unable to repeal Obamacare so they expect the SC to do it...say what?  isn't that what they supposedly have ran against since... forever... but because with total control they could not get it done the SC is supposed to legislate from the bench...

[jmyrlefuller]

I guess you missed my earlier post where I pointed out the District Court's ruling is DOA because an appeal will immediately be filed, and granted, enjoining enforcement of judges order pending appeal...that's the way the judicial system works.

And if the appeal is denied, the injunction expires—that's also how the judicial system works.

[Oceander]

@Oceander

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5629711-Texas-v-US-Partial-Summary-Judgment.html

@Elderberry

Thanks!

[Fishrrman]

I disagree with previous posters.
There's no way to know for certain how the Supreme Court will handle this -- at least, not yet.

Next step is the appellate level. Hopefully it won't take that long to be heard, once it gets there.
Let's see how an en banc panel of appeals judges handles this.

Having written that...
Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that the Supreme Court eventually DOES agree with Judge O'Connor and calls for obamacare to be thrown out.

What will be implemented to "replace" it?
(if anything)

Could this begin the putsch for "Medicare for all" ??

[Oceander]

I guess you missed my earlier post where I pointed out the District Court's ruling is DOA because an appeal will immediately be filed, and granted, enjoining enforcement of judges order pending appeal...that's the way the judicial system works.

The SC will not repeal Obamacare, the CJ is a Conservative judge, and was confirmed on that basis. Many believe the conservative label means the same politically and judicially it does not.

As an aside, to me its bizarre that the GOP has ran for years on the platform of SC judges not making law from the bench. They ran and some might conclude they won control of all three branches of government in 2016 based on the pledge to repeal Obamacare. They had  control  but  were unable to repeal Obamacare so they expect the SC to do it...say what?  isn't that what they supposedly have ran against since... forever... but because with total control they could not get it done the SC is supposed to legislate from the bench...

Assuming arguendo that enforcement of the district court’s order is stated pending appeal, that stay will expire if the appeal is denied, if the appeal is granted but the decision upheld, or if the period for appeal expires without an appeal being filed (highly unlikely in this case, but always a possibility). 

The only way the stay remains permanently is if the district court’s decision is overruled, either as to the unconstitutionality of the individual mandate or as to the severability analysis.  But at that point a stay would be meaningless. 

So it’s incorrect to say that this decision is DOA simply because enforcement will be stayed pending appeal. 

[Oceander]

I disagree with previous posters.
There's no way to know for certain how the Supreme Court will handle this -- at least, not yet.

Next step is the appellate level. Hopefully it won't take that long to be heard, once it gets there.
Let's see how an en banc panel of appeals judges handles this.

Having written that...
Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that the Supreme Court eventually DOES agree with Judge O'Connor and calls for obamacare to be thrown out.

What will be implemented to "replace" it?
(if anything)

Could this begin the putsch for "Medicare for all" ??

That is a very valid concern.  However, since Congress will remain split for the next two years, at least, and the Senate is unlikely to agree to Medicare for all, and the president is unlikely to sign any such bill into law even if the Senate passes it, there is some time available.  But that time must be used wisely by the GOP and not simply squandered by waiting around to see what happens. If the GOP does that, in four years the democrats will probably succeed in getting Medicare for all. 


Edit:  very, very, very valid concern. I just saw a news item on BNA about this case, and the democrats are shrieking like hellish stuck pigs about the decision, and are vowing to do something. 

[the_doc]

I do not understand the logic.

The crucial "reason" why the ACA was declared Constitutional by the Roberts Court was that ACA was supposedly a matter of the Congress's power to tax.  This was a bogus argument--fraught with problems--but that was the basis of the SCOTUS ruling, as I understood it at the time. 

Now that Congress has removed the "tax" (actually the purely coercive penalty for not buying coverage), the ACA has no Constitutional defense--or in the case of the earlier Roberts decision, no SCOTUS defense.  The Texas federal judge was essentially retrying the SCOTUS case without the bizarre legal prop regarding the "tax."

I believe if the Circuit court agrees with the District judge, then the SCOTUS will let the recent ruling stand.  And if the Trump administration will not fight for the ACA, the ACA could very well be doomed.

[Oceander]

That was a beautiful little opinion there!

I only hope that it is upheld on appeal.  It should be, at least by the Supreme Court, if not the Fifth Circuit, but you never know with things like this.  I can, unfortunately, see it being overturned using the sophistry that since the shared responsibility payment is still technically in there, even though it’s now set to $0, that the individual mandate is therefore still constitutional as a predicate that triggers a tax. 

Fingers crossed. 

And who, I would like to know, orchestrated this whole affair?  There is a certain fineness of legal jujitsu to it that I find attractive. 

[the_doc]

And who, I would like to know, orchestrated this whole affair?  There is a certain fineness of legal jujitsu to it that I find attractive.

The good news is that the 5th Circuit is one of the better Appellate courts, I think.  And since the SCOTUS precedent that stupidly legitimized ACA is now inapplicable, I think the ACA is in pretty big trouble. 

[Oceander]

The good news is that the 5th Circuit is one of the better Appellate courts, I think.  And since the SCOTUS precedent that stupidly legitimized ACA is now inapplicable, I think the ACA is in pretty big trouble. 

Fingers crossed.

I think it says something, though, that the democrats and liberals are shrieking like hell-bound harpies about this case.

[the_doc]

Fingers crossed.

I think it says something, though, that the democrats and liberals are shrieking like hell-bound harpies about this case.

No surprise there.  It's what hell-bound harpies do.