Obamacare Struck Down By Federal Judge
Talk about your Friday night news dumps. A federal judge in Texas has struck down the Affordable Care Act on constitutional grounds. You may recall that when the Supreme Court upheld the act, they did so by declaring the individual mandate a tax. With the individual mandate repealed by this congress, various states including Georgia sued, and a federal judge has agreed that the original SCOTUS standing no longer applies.
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 They claimed that when Congress repealed the tax penalty last year, it eliminated the U.S. Supreme Court’s rationale for finding the ACA constitutional in 2012.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.
“The remainder of the ACA is non-severable from the individual mandate, meaning that the Act must be invalidated in whole,” O’Connor wrote.
Like many others, I just finished going over this year’s open enrollment (poor) options to continue coverage under the exchange. Given that all options to folks in metro Atlanta are HMO’s, I’ve long since given up my doctor I was promised I can keep. The $2,500 decline in premiums? I’ll be paying $650 per month for coverage that covers almost nothing until I pay an additional $7005 deductible. Thus, I’m out of pocket for about $15 grand before “insurance” kicks in.
This system is broken, and the judge has agreed that the vague constitutional construct used to justify it is gone. Let’s replace it with something that actually allows for flexibility and a patient to negotiate directly with the provider of their choosing.
Add a Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.
I have always been forced to switch my doctor or pay more to see them any time my company switched plans prior to and after the ACA was signed. Welcome to my world.
It’s broken because most of congress refuses to fix the ACA. Manly because medical and insurance lobbies don’t want them to fix it. A rare few, because they want to erase all things Obama off the face of the congressional record and history.
It would be political suicide for any party to not cover pre-existing conditions. The best case for a ‘repeal’ will be the same way the Trump administration handled NAFTA (maintain 98% of what was there, address fixes that would have been covered in the TTP but not as strong as the TTP fixes, have standards that will be added and can never seriously be measured let alone enforced, and give it a new name so Trump can say he got rid of NAFTA). SO now we will look at ‘repealing’ (instead of fixing) “Obamacare”, put up a new plan that will have 98% of what is in the current ACA, will add minor fluffy fixxy thingies that will be blessed first by the medical, drug and insurance lobbies, which can not be seriously measured or enforced (while never addressing the real problems like why a hospital ER will charge you $4,000 for placing 5 stitches and a bandage on you arm when urgent cares are not open, tort reform, ect…) call it something dumb like The United State’s Great Healthcare You Wanted Act (USGHYWA), and rebrand it as ‘Trumpcare’ and then all of the GOP can say they got Repelled and Replaced Obamacare.
Ellen what Obama came up with aint working. If it was, folks would be happy with it wouldn’t they? Do you know anyone happy with their health insurance? It needs to be cheaper, better and more accessible. I don’t think anyone disagrees with that.
I have never meet anyone who is happy with any form of health insurance in the last 30 years. Health insurance will up regardless of who gets something through congress because healthcare costs go up.
What congress needs to address is why does healthcare costs what it does.
The GOP plan is and always has been one thing: if you’re not rich when you get sick, die. They have NEVER offered a plan, not when they had majorities under Bush or Trump. Just die or die harder.
Great point Charlie. The system is broken.
Maybe the folks in Congress will surprise us and actually do their job and come up with a workable solution. Both sides have to be involved and everyone must own it. If not we get a continuation of this overpriced almost unusable crap.
Good for you for finding insurance at $650 a month. When I was self employed 9 years ago, my Blue Cross Blue shield premium was $1200 for a family of 4. I work for a corporation now and pay part of my premium which is about $650 a month as well but have lower deductibles. I am not sure what it is for the self- employed today but it has to be horrific. This is NOT a partisan issue.
To get rid of ‘this overprice almost unusable crap’ as you call it, they would have to get rid of coverage of pre-existing conditions. This means the free market will either change folks like me who were born with a pre-existing condition 3 – 5 times more so you can have cheep crap or not cover me at all. It would also be political suicide for anyone not running in a GOP stronghold.
And the replacement after 50 repeal votes over a half dozen years of development is…………..
Telemedicine and taxpayer donations to failing rural hospitals.
Good luck after the 3:1 maximum factor for age is eliminated.
Just on the severability issue, I’m sure there is a volume of jurisprudence on how to be properly conservative on using a scalpel instead of a chainsaw when there are any provision that need excision or reform.
As for reform, I would be happy if the Supreme Court elbowed Congress to do what it has been unable to do, and actually pass fixes.
But they will overrule the overreaching ruling- a couple of options for that, but the best may be just to say that Congress never actually repealed the use of its power of taxation. It zeroed out the tax, so the question is: Can Congress use its power to tax even when the penalty is 0? The easy answer is that if Congress wanted to not use its taxation power, it would have repealed the power itself. Changing the penalty doesn’t change the elaborated policy purposes, or possibility of a penalty. Clearly, Congress is capable of changing the amount of the penalty. So, the Court cannot simply strip away a Constitutionally-vested authority or use of authority because Congress is choosing to exercise it in the way they have already deemed to be “necessary and proper”.
Anyone who says different is an activist.
A note of caution from the WSJ.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/texas-obamacare-blunder-11544996418