Another court weighs fate of Obamacare
- by Joy Garcia
- in Medicine
- — Jul 13, 2019
If they uphold the lower court decision, millions of Americans, many of them sickly or lower income individuals, would be in danger of losing their health care coverage.
It's unclear exactly when the appeals court will rule, but whichever side loses at this stage is nearly certain to appeal to the Supreme Court, setting up a potential legal showdown in the middle of the 2020 presidential race.
Wisconsin lawmakers of both parties share one commonality when asked about the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the lawsuit seeking to overturn it, in appeals court Tuesday.
On Tuesday, attorneys for California and the House of Representatives, which also has joined the suit to defend the law, urged the appellate court to preserve the law, in part because there is no evidence that Congress meant to repeal the whole law when it eliminated the mandate penalty in 2017. Well, in 2017 a Republican-controlled Congress, after balking at actually repealing the ACA, reduced the penalty for being uninsured to $0.00 - effectively eliminating the mandate.
Even if there's a courtroom victory for the red states and Trump administration, the unraveling of the Affordable Care Act poses risks for Republicans who haven't shown much of an appetite for working on a replacement plan ahead of the 2020 elections, particularly after a few failed attempts to pass a health care plan in 2017. In December, Judge Reed O'Connor of the Federal District Court in Fort Worth said it could not and declared that the entire law must fall.
Lawyers from the Trump administration and a group of Republican states squared off against attorneys from a coalition of Democratic states and the House of Representatives in a New Orleans appeals court to argue the fate of the Affordable Care Act.
Republican opponents call the law an unwarranted intervention by government in health insurance markets, while supporters say striking it down would threaten the healthcare of 20 million people who have gained insurance since its enactment. "If there's one thing that I think there is a consensus on in the health care field in Congress it's the pre-existing conditions should be covered". When the Supreme Court upheld the mandate in its landmark 2012 ruling that saved the law, it was based on Congress's power to impose taxes. "Republicans should be the party of healthcare and we should come together on a workable proposal to replace Obamacare". Also, they said that eliminating Obamacare or the protections for those with pre-existing conditions would harm millions of Americans.
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Support for rural hospitals, in particular, would be in jeopardy amid potential federal cuts to health care topping $5 billion, Casey said.
Robert Henneke, the Texas Public Policy Foundation general counsel and the lead counsel for the individual plaintiffs, told reporters after the hearing it was a "good day".
"If they have their way, millions of Americans could be forced to delay, skip or [forgo] potentially life-saving health care", Becerra said. "We should all work towards making quality health care accessible and affordable for all Americans - especially those living with preexisting conditions", said Heinrich. The outcome will apply to all states, but is expected to be appealed to the US Supreme Court. But any decision is likely to be appealed and could go to the U.S. Supreme Court. "They go home and they say they want to protect pre-existing conditions, and then they act to take them away... they say they want to protect and then do nothing to preserve them".
"We had an alternative in the 115th Congress", Higgins said.
Democrats in Congress, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and several members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), rallied on the steps of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.
More than 800,000 Washingtonians depend on the ACA for their health care.
