Policy

Texas judge strikes down Affordable Care Act as ‘unconstitutional’

The court ruled that individual mandate is unconstitutional and "inseverable" from the rest of the sweeping 2010 statute.

On the eve of the last day of the Affordable Care Act’s open enrollment period, a federal judge in Texas has struck down the entire law after ruling the individual mandate to buy insurance is unconstitutional.

The court’s decision rests on the fact that the individual mandate is a “essential” feature of the ACA and cannot be severed from the rest of the sweeping law, which contains provisions ranging from Medicaid expansion to calorie labeling to protections from pre-existing conditions.

“The court finds the individual mandate can no longer be fairly read as an exercise of Congress’s tax power and is still impermissible under the interstate commerce clause, meaning the individual mandate is unconstitutional … The court finds the individual mandate is essential to and inseverable from the remainder of the ACA,” U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor wrote in his opinion.

The ruling throws into question the future of the 2010 law, as well as the status of the nearly 20 million Americans who have received healthcare coverage as a result of the statute.

Legal experts expect that the case will be appealed and could be brought up in front of the Supreme Court, which will be the third time the high court will take up the issue of the ACA. In two previous decisions in 2012 and 2015, the court upheld the law.

This most recent lawsuit was filed by a number of state attorney generals who made the complicated legal claim that since last year’s tax bill removed the financial penalties for the individual mandate – and that the mandate was previously considered a tax – the provision was made unconstitutional.

The suit goes on further by saying that since the individual mandate was a key part of the original law, it can’t be extricated from the rest of the ACA.

Major healthcare organizations including the American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association and America’s Health Insurance Plans opposed the lawsuit.

Earlier this year, the Trump Administration took the unusual step of deciding not to not to defend the legality of the individual mandate.

In response, a group of pro-ACA attorneys general led by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra took up the banner of defense and they have pledged to continue their legal effort in the wake of Judge O’Conner’s ruling.

“Today’s ruling is an assault on 133 million Americans with preexisting conditions, on the 20 million Americans who rely on the ACA for healthcare, and on America’s faithful progress toward affordable healthcare for all Americans,” Becerra said in a statement.

“The ACA has already survived more than 70 unsuccessful repeal attempts and withstood scrutiny in the Supreme Court. Today’s misguided ruling will not deter us: our coalition will continue to fight in court for the health and wellbeing of all Americans.”

Photo: Chris Ryan, Getty Images

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