In a dramatic escalation of the Trump administration’s legal battle against President Obama’s health care law, Justice Department lawyers now say the entire Affordable Care Act should be struck down.
Having previously argued, under AG Jeff Sessions, that only the law’s pre-existing condition protections should be struck down, DoJ lawyers told a federal appeals court Monday it thinks the whole of ObamaCare is unconstitutional, siding with a Texas district court ruling that found Obamacare unconstitutional.
In a letter Monday night, the administration said “it is not urging that any portion of the district court’s judgment be reversed.”
“The Department of Justice has determined that the district court’s comprehensive opinion came to the correct conclusion and will support it on appeal,” said Kerri Kupec, spokesperson for the Justice Department.
The Hill points out that the case centers on the argument that since Congress repealed the tax penalty in the law’s mandate for everyone to have insurance in 2017, the mandate can no longer be ruled constitutional under Congress’s power to tax.
The challengers then argue that all of ObamaCare should be invalidated because the mandate is unconstitutional.
Most legal experts say legal precedent shows that even if the mandate is ruled unconstitutional, the rest of ObamaCare should remain unharmed, as that is what Congress voted to do in the 2017 tax law that repealed the mandate’s penalty.
Of course, at a moment when Trump’s political capital is soaring after the Mueller/Avenatti debacles have crushed the #resistance, as The Hill reports, the move is certain to prompt new denunciations from Democrats, who had already seized on the Trump administration’s earlier call for the pre-existing condition protections to be struck down.
“This lawsuit is as dangerous as it is reckless. It threatens the healthcare of tens of millions of Americans across the country — from California to Kentucky and all the way to Maine,” said California Attorney General Xavier Becerra in a statement.
“The Affordable Care Act is an integral part of our healthcare system… Because no American should fear losing healthcare, we will defend the ACA every step of the way.”
Specifically, as The Washington Times concludes, the administration’s decision to fully back the lawsuit will loom large on Tuesday when Democrats plan to propose measures that would make Obamacare more generous and combat Mr. Trump’s changes to the program, which they’ve dubbed “sabotage.”
via zerohedge
it was illegal to start with and we the people knew this, now ten years later lawyers now state the same thing, why were they afraid to confront a muslim squatting in the Whitehouse illegally?
… because the mudSLIME was also black.
Nobody is interested in what the MSM thinks about anything as their job was to report news and not make it!
Fear of being caclled racist. Zero made more people think that way, and elevated the N word to common parlance, even in places where the loony left are predominant.
As an 80 year old I am totally enjoying Obamacare fucking me BIG TIME…Just one of my medications for diabetes cost me $70 co-pay for 90 days 3 years ago…today IT COST ME $1,350 for 90 days. Being screwed by my own government and watching BIG PHARMA rip me off to make BILLIONS each year in profit is ugly considering that the cabal of politicians are also stuffing their pockets through the contributions from BIG PHARMA while they pretend they are protecting us against pre-existing conditions…THAT IS A FUCKING LIE! President Clinton ROBBED the Social Security Lock Box for $3 TRILLION dollars, Obama took $2.6 TRILLION even George Bush in 2015 tapped the lock box for $1.7 TRILLION…and none of these corrupt political leaders thought they would ever repay those funds…THAT IS ROBBERY of every American citizen who has paid their payroll taxes for decades believing their insurance would be there when they retired. REPAY THE LOCK BOX TRUST FUND AND SS WILL NOT BE DOOMED TO FAILURE IN 20 YEARS…instead of giving ever illegal Tom, Dick & Harry Alien SS benefits and $250 Billion each year in FREE Everything…
If the Dark State gives MY Social Security dollars to ILLEGALS, there will be H3LL to pay!!!
Obama catered to the rich athletes and so called Hollywood stars when he structured Obamacare not to the everyday man or woman that was not making enough money to afford to pay a monthly fee for a super high deductible plan that they could not use anyway because they could not afford a 5000.00 or more deductible. It mush have had a clause in there to cover Obama for when he was standing behind his elite star friends sniffing their butts in case they passed gas because those people were his idols and he followed them around like a sick puppy trying to fit in to their snob club and they have the nerve to think that free thinking Americans care what they think or say about anything. Get rid of this plan because paying for health care and being priced out of using it because of high deductibles only makes insurance companies wealthier and citizens poorer.
Remember his saying as a running candidate Time for change. Obama was a destroyer of this fine nation, he didn’t care about a constitution! Obama care ha! ha! a joke!
THE BIG LIE , DEMO-RATS
doj finally figured out what Conservatives have known for YEARS!!!
There is nor ever has been anything afordable with ACA. It does not help the low and mid level people. And to penalize someone because they couldnt afford the healthcare.