• You may find search is unavailable for a little while. Trying to fix a problem.
  • Please excuse the mess, we're moving the furniture and restructuring the forum categories

Federal Judge strikes down Affordable Care Act

I wonder how many anti-ACA will now find themselves without health insurance or huge premium increases due to pre-existing conditons?

A federal judge in Texas has ruled the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional, finding that the law cannot stand now that Congress has rolled back the mandate that everyone carry health insurance or pay a fine.

The new ruling poses a significant threat to the Affordable Care Act’s most popular and most sweeping health insurance reforms. If affirmed at higher courts, it could roll back Obamacare’s ban on preexisting conditions. Insurers would once again be able to charge sick patients higher premiums.
The Trump administration had partially supported this lawsuit, filing a brief asking the court to overturn Obamacare’s ban on preexisting conditions.
Click to expand...

Essentially, the state attorneys general are arguing that the individual mandate isn’t severable from the rest of the law. If the court finds the mandate unconstitutional, then the rest of the law — everything from protections for preexisting conditions to the Medicaid expansion required calorie labeling on menus — has to go down with it.
Click to expand...
https://www.vox.com/2018/12/14/18065838/obamacare-unconstitutional-texas-ruling
 
Last edited:
CapelDodger said:
The US wasn't designed to be a nation-state. It wasn't designed to be a Republic. It was designed to be an open-ended legal case, by lawyers, for lawyers.
Click to expand...

Except his ruling was in direct contradiction to SCOTUS's ruling just a few years ago. He isn't ordering stopping the Affordable Care Act. So where does that leave us? A single judge in Texas cannot overturn the Supreme Court and Congress. This will have to work it's way back to SCOTUS which would take a year if it gets that far.
 
Last edited:
acbytesla said:
SCOTUS already ruled on this. This is meaningless.
Click to expand...

According to the article, after that SCOTUS decision, the penalty for the individual mandate was changed to $0 by the Republican congress. That change is what makes it now in violation of The Constitution.
 
acbytesla said:
Except his ruling was in direct contradiction to SCOTUS's ruling just a few years ago. He isn't ordering stopping the Affordable Care Act. So where does that leave us? A single judge in Texas cannot overturn the Supreme Court and Congress. This will have to work it's way back to SCOTUS which would take a year if it gets that far.
Click to expand...
As I say, the US isn't a nation, it's an open-ended lawsuit.
 
Molinaro said:
According to the article, after that SCOTUS decision, the penalty for the individual mandate was changed to $0 by the Republican congress. That change is what makes it now in violation of The Constitution.
Click to expand...
Allegedly.

The US won't go out with a bang, nor with a whimper, it'll go out in a welter of litigation.
 
acbytesla said:
Except his ruling was in direct contradiction to SCOTUS's ruling just a few years ago. He isn't ordering stopping the Affordable Care Act. So where does that leave us? A single judge in Texas cannot overturn the Supreme Court and Congress. This will have to work it's way back to SCOTUS which would take a year if it gets that far.
Click to expand...

This ruling makes no sense. When a section of a law is found unenforceable or unconstitutional the ruling is always specific to that specific section.

Can anyone find an example where the entire law was tossed out due to a problem with one clause?

I doubt this will survive the first level of appeal.
 
If this is allowed to stand I lose my health insurance. That... is not optimal.
 
Travis said:
If this is allowed to stand I lose my health insurance. That... is not optimal.
Click to expand...

Don't worry, Travis. Trump has promised that he has far better and cheaper plan just waiting to replace the ACA. And he always keeps his promises. Would he lie?
 
A former republican senate staffer issuing an order that is entirely in line with republican talking points? Colour me shocked...
 
acbytesla said:
Except his ruling was in direct contradiction to SCOTUS's ruling just a few years ago. He isn't ordering stopping the Affordable Care Act. So where does that leave us? A single judge in Texas cannot overturn the Supreme Court and Congress. This will have to work it's way back to SCOTUS which would take a year if it gets that far.
Click to expand...

My quick reading on it is that it's not a contradiction. Since the tax penalty for not having insurance is now 0, they can't argue that it's constitutional under taxing powers.
 
bonzombiekitty said:
My quick reading on it is that it's not a contradiction. Since the tax penalty for not having insurance is now 0, they can't argue that it's constitutional under taxing powers.
Click to expand...



Wasn't that change made by the Republicans? Am I getting this right? They made it unconstitutional, and are now bragging about, "Hey, we TOLD you that it was unconstitutional!"?
 
Molinaro said:
According to the article, after that SCOTUS decision, the penalty for the individual mandate was changed to $0 by the Republican congress. That change is what makes it now in violation of The Constitution.
Click to expand...
If the republican led change makes the law unconstitutional, shouldn’t the court just declared that reducing the mandate to $0 is the unconstitutional bit because of its effect on the ACA?

I’m just thinking about how that would play out with other laws : “the federal voting act has been declared unconstitutional by a judge thanks to a republican law redefining ‘race’ earlier.”
 
Horatius said:
Wasn't that change made by the Republicans? Am I getting this right? They made it unconstitutional, and are now bragging about, "Hey, we TOLD you that it was unconstitutional!"?
Click to expand...

That's their entire approach to government. Break it and claim it never worked in the first place so it should be removed to give tax cuts to their donors.
 
Horatius said:
Wasn't that change made by the Republicans? Am I getting this right? They made it unconstitutional, and are now bragging about, "Hey, we TOLD you that it was unconstitutional!"?
Click to expand...

Republicans seem intent on making the US the place where democracy, integrity, honesty and values went to die.
 
bonzombiekitty said:
My quick reading on it is that it's not a contradiction. Since the tax penalty for not having insurance is now 0, they can't argue that it's constitutional under taxing powers.
Click to expand...

The Supreme Court decided that the penalty can be enforced because Congress has the authority to impose a tax. They didn’t declare that the Constitutional basis of the entire law required a monitary penalty for not buying heath insurance.

The original ACA regulations waived the penalty in most cases where people did not buy heath insurance.
 
Last edited:
So after two years of controlling Congress and the White House all the Republicans have come up with is to replace the plan that provides affordable health care and protects people with pre-existing conditions with a plan that provides affordable health care and protects people with pre-existing conditions?
 
Garrison said:
So after two years of controlling Congress and the White House all the Republicans have come up with is to replace the plan that provides affordable health care and protects people with pre-existing conditions with a plan that provides affordable health care and protects people with pre-existing conditions?
Click to expand...

Correction. After two years of controlling Congress and the White House all the Republicans have come up with is to repeal the plan that provides affordable health care and protects people with pre-existing conditions. They don't have anything on the "replace" part of the plan...
 
Horatius said:
Wasn't that change made by the Republicans? Am I getting this right? They made it unconstitutional, and are now bragging about, "Hey, we TOLD you that it was unconstitutional!"?
Click to expand...

I thought that was what the republicans were trying to do: unable to repeal it they instead seek to break Obamacare as much as possible so that it will fail.
 
Random said:
Correction. After two years of controlling Congress and the White House all the Republicans have come up with is to repeal the plan that provides affordable health care and protects people with pre-existing conditions. They don't have anything on the "replace" part of the plan...
Click to expand...

Indeed. Trump was the one who added "replace" to it. Not that he had a plan either, much less actually gave a ****.
 
Travis said:
If this is allowed to stand I lose my health insurance. That... is not optimal.
Click to expand...

Dude, you live in California. There is no shortage of free stuff here, we are the entitlement capitol of the country. Just get in line!

In fact the new CA Text Messaging Tax will help you get a free phone!

Text Message Tax
 
Armitage72 said:
It's always been about destroying everything that President Obama did, in retaliation for the 2011 White House Correspondents' Dinner.
Click to expand...

This! I also don't doubt that he blames Obama for his looking like a fool regarding the birth certificate nonsense.
 
Stacyhs said:
This! I also don't doubt that he blames Obama for his looking like a fool regarding the birth certificate nonsense.
Click to expand...
That would require him to recognize that it made him look like a fool. I don't think he's capable of that.
Meanwhile, it doesn't appear that the decision will have any immediate effect, pending the inevitable appeals. The Supreme Court previously found it constitutional but its composition has changed and this decision was based on the exclusion of the individual mandate penalty.
 
Trebuchet said:
That would require him to recognize that it made him look like a fool. I don't think he's capable of that.
Meanwhile, it doesn't appear that the decision will have any immediate effect, pending the inevitable appeals. The Supreme Court previously found it constitutional but its composition has changed and this decision was based on the exclusion of the individual mandate penalty.
Click to expand...

As I've said in other places...

The ACA is, effectively, the GOP's response to the US health care problem, put in place by a moderate dem looking for compromise. If it actually gets tossed out entirely (and many people are questioning this ruling), then I see no reason why the Dems don't just go for Medicare for all, and then turn wildly hostile to the courts if they toss that out as well.

(It's really quite remarkable that the GOP can't even accept a "yes" coming from a black guy...)
 
Trebuchet said:
That would require him to recognize that it made him look like a fool. I don't think he's capable of that.Meanwhile, it doesn't appear that the decision will have any immediate effect, pending the inevitable appeals. The Supreme Court previously found it constitutional but its composition has changed and this decision was based on the exclusion of the individual mandate penalty.
Click to expand...

I think he definitely knows when he's made to look like a fool and that is why he hates Obama so much. He doesn't acknowledge that he is a fool, only that he was made to look like one.
 
Kestrel said:
This ruling makes no sense. When a section of a law is found unenforceable or unconstitutional the ruling is always specific to that specific section.
Click to expand...
As I understand it, this actually depends on how exactly the law is written. Some laws are written in so that their clauses are explicitly separate from each other. In that case, one clause may be struck down without affecting the others. However, if this explicit separation is not spelled out, then the whole law must generally be taken as a single entity, that fails entirely if any part of it fails.

It may also be the case that the clauses of the law must be linked in order for the law to succeed. This is the kind of thing that courts must rule on. Another thing that courts may have to rule on is any custom or precedent that might apply to a specific category of law, where the laws are always assumed to be severable (several?) even when not spelled out.

All of which to say that it's not automatically the case with every law, that striking down one clause doesn't mean striking down the whole law.

I seem to recall some discussion a few years ago about how the ACA omitted the explicit wording that allowed its clauses to be ruled on separately from each other. But I don't have any details and can't vouch for the accuracy of that.
 
Travis said:
If this is allowed to stand I lose my health insurance. That... is not optimal.
Click to expand...
Me too. We'll just have to hope that it's reversed on one of the lower appeals, with the new makeup of the Supreme Court I don't think we can count on them.
 
theprestige said:
As I understand it, this actually depends on how exactly the law is written. Some laws are written in so that their clauses are explicitly separate from each other. In that case, one clause may be struck down without affecting the others. However, if this explicit separation is not spelled out, then the whole law must generally be taken as a single entity, that fails entirely if any part of it fails.

It may also be the case that the clauses of the law must be linked in order for the law to succeed. This is the kind of thing that courts must rule on. Another thing that courts may have to rule on is any custom or precedent that might apply to a specific category of law, where the laws are always assumed to be severable (several?) even when not spelled out.

All of which to say that it's not automatically the case with every law, that striking down one clause doesn't mean striking down the whole law.

I seem to recall some discussion a few years ago about how the ACA omitted the explicit wording that allowed its clauses to be ruled on separately from each other. But I don't have any details and can't vouch for the accuracy of that.
Click to expand...

Nobody has yet provided an example where failure to include the magic words resulted in an entire complex law being struck down on the basis of one small part of that law.

Rather odd considering how often unconstitutional provisions get slipped into laws at the state level.

A more reasonable explanation is that a Federal judge known for his far right beliefs invented a novel legal theory to get rid of the entire ACA. An action that could result in a Circuit Court nomination by President Trump.
 
Arcade22 said:
I thought that was what the republicans were trying to do: unable to repeal it they instead seek to break Obamacare as much as possible so that it will fail.
Click to expand...

I very honestly see this as at least negligent homicide. The Republicans are knowingly sentencing tens of thousands of citizens to death in the name of the Party.

Not only have the idle rich declared that the workers don’t matter, they are actively seeking legislation that kills them off.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom