How GOP Lawyers Undercut Their Own Case Against Obamacare
Given the makeup of the SC, I am very skeptical the the ACA will survive.
01/27/2020 12:06 pm ET
How GOP Lawyers Undercut Their Own Case Against Obamacare
The lawsuit makes even less sense than it did before, which is saying something.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/obamacare-mandate-texas-trump-constitutional_n_5e2dbcb7c5b6d6767fd6579f
The Trump administration lawyers trying to get rid of the Affordable Care Act may have undermined a central argument of their case, thanks to an admission in their very own court papers.
The filings were part of a lawsuit, now called Texas v. U.S., that started with 20 Republican state officials and claims that a fatal constitutional flaw in Obamacare requires invalidating the entire program. President Donald Trump instructed the Justice Department to support the lawsuit, and if it succeeds, 20 million people could lose their health coverage.
It’s difficult to find respectable legal experts who think the case is persuasive, and it’s easy to find ones who think it is laugh-out-loud weak. But in the federal courts, the lawsuit has already won support from three Republican-appointed judges, which is why it seems destined for the Supreme Court.
The question now is when that might happen. In December, after the most recent ruling, Democratic attorneys defending the Affordable Care Act asked the justices to take the case right away. Republicans bringing the lawsuit said it was fine to wait and, last week, the justices said they agreed.
That likely pushes a hearing and ruling back until after the 2020 election, which is presumably why Republicans were hoping for the delay. Keeping the lawsuit in the news would probably hurt the Republicans politically, given strong public opposition to GOP repeal efforts.
But in the brief laying out the case for taking things slow, Trump’s Justice Department lawyers made a curious statement: They said the Affordable Care Act’s supposedly unconstitutional provision has no practical impact.
That raises the question of why courts should even hear the lawsuit, let alone end a program on which tens of millions depend for health care.
There doesn’t appear to be a good answer.
What The Republican Lawsuit Claims..............................
Link to tweet
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