Trump Admin Files Court Brief to Abolish Obamacare

ET:

The Trump administration filed a formal request on May 1 to abolish the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as “Obamacare.”

A Texas district court judge ruled late last year that Obamacare became unconstitutional after Congress repealed the individual mandate provision of the law. The Trump administration didn’t initially support the ruling, but changed course on March 25, telling the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that the district court’s ruling “should be affirmed.”

In a 75-page court brief (pdf), the Justice Department offers an extensive defense for the district court’s decision. The department argues that Congress wouldn’t have approved Obamacare without the individual mandate, with significant portions of the legislation depending on that provision.

The individual mandate portion of Obamacare required all taxpayers who aren’t enrolled in a health insurance plan to pay a fine to the Internal Revenue Service. The Supreme Court’s decision upholding Obamacare rested entirely on an interpretation of the individual mandate as a tax. Republicans severed the monetary penalty portion of the mandate as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in December 2017.

The gutting of the mandate paved the way for the case in Texas, with District Judge Reed O’Connor from Fort Worth ruling on Dec. 14, 2018, that all of Obamacare is unconstitutional, in absence of the mandate’s power to raise revenue. With the penalty gone, the mandate no longer could be used to prop up Obamacare using Congress’s taxation powers.  read more