The Obamacare socialist healthcare bill has been struck down by a Texas judge, God bless that state, and Kamala Harris from California, God bless that terrible state, is already whining about it.
More:
More from Bloomberg:
The decision Friday finding the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional comes just before the end of a six-week open enrollment period for the program in 2019 and underscores a divide between Republicans who have long sought to invalidate the law and Democrats who fought to keep it in place.
But we’re not done yet – it’s likely gonna head to the Supremes, and I don’t mean Diana Ross:
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. The decision is almost certain to be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court.
“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. A spokeswoman for Becerra said an appeal will be filed before Jan. 1.
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 They claimed that when Congress repealed the tax penalty last year, it eliminated the U.S. Supreme Court’s rationale for finding the ACA constitutional in 2012.
The Texas judge agreed.
Well that is good news considering that the Republicans were unable to repeal it despite having a majority in Congress. But will we be able to keep this ruling once it goes to the Supreme Court, even with bad boy Brett Kavanaugh in place? I wonder.
UPDATE!!
Steven Dennis had more to say:
There are no senators who voted for the tax law thinking it would eliminate the ACA; it would never have passed with that understanding. Trust me, I’ve spoken to many, many, many senators about this. BUT, if this ruling stands, the ACA is gone, toast.
SCOTUS controls whether or not the ACA is eviscerated:Roberts (Voted to save ACA last time)Kavanaugh (Convinced Susan Collins, Manchin he wouldn’t nuke ACA)GorsuchThomas (Voted to nuke ACA previously)Alito (Ditto)RBG, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan have previously backed ACA.
Have to read a little more about the ruling to see if this also eliminates all of the tax hikes in the ACA. Because how do you argue it is congressional intent to increase the budget deficit in such a way that would have violated the very budget rules used to pass the bill?
Sounds like a poison pill. Was this planned all along? There’s a lot of liberals freaking out right now and saying this was Trump’s plan.
The ruling came the evening before the final day of open enrollment for ACA plans. (Millions are eligible to sign up with large federal subsidies and no discrimination against pre-existing conditions — which will all go to zero if the judge’s interpretation of the law holds up.)
Also gone would be Medicaid expansion money for many states, which in turn covers millions more.
I’ll tell you what, no matter what happens, the GOP better not get caught with its pants down again – they better have a bill ready to actually help Americans if Obamacare is torn away. This is a grand opportunity, and they already screwed it up once…
UPDATE!!
Trump has tweeted about it:
And AllahPundit is saying this was the plan all along: