A bit rich for the Left to trash activist judges and judge-shopping.
The ACA as written was not constitutional—Congress can regulate commerce, not compel it.
Chief Justice Roberts made the law constitutional by rewriting it, making the mandate precisely what Obama was arguing (even if spuriously) it wasn't—a tax.
Recall this gem from Obama's ACA architect, Jonathan Gruber: "This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes…call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever."
Roberts' rationale for his activism—“It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.”
But it's also not the job of SCOTUS to rewrite laws.
"The tax bill did not invalidate the Affordable Care Act — it did away only with the penalty for not being insured. Congress left the rest of the law intact."—Cristian Farias
The tax bill was a de facto invalidation/repeal. ACA survival requires healthy young people to buy it. They won't. Coverage of pre-existing conditions allows them to wait until they need it to buy it. The ACA cannot exist without the mandate revenue stream.
Despite the ACA death spiral, the Left's Pavlovian drool continues—conditioned reflex, facile punditry & picaresque prose that practically writes itself.
"Obamacare is a crazy idea"—Bill Clinton
4
Conservatives: The law is unconstitutional.
Leftists: who cares? It’s popular.
We’ve all seen “partisan, activist” rulings from BHO or WJC appointed “judges”, who simply make up the law as they go along. See e.g. DACA rulings, travel ban rulings, etc. The nuttier a decision, the greater the certainty that the author was appointed by BHO or WJC.
This decision, contrariwise, takes the SCOTUS decision – which sustained the ACA on the basis of the taxation power – and properly notes, “when you delete the tax, which was the asserted peg upon which the entire act hung, the law becomes unconstitutional, as Congress – per the SCOTUS – lacks the power under any other clause of the Constitution.”
Leftists: but it’s popular!!
(Free lunches always are, which is one of the reasons the Constitution limits the power of Congress to buy votes by offering them.)
Last month, leftists had a cow over the POTUS accusing BHO appointees of being “partisan activists”. This editorial makes the same assertion except, in DT’s case, he was right. Leftist judges do not consider themselves bound by the law, if they like the policy. And invent proscriptions when they don’t.
The CJ was right: the people chose to elect a congress which expressly repealed the ONLY part of the law which made it constitutional. The Court lacks the power to save the people from the consequences of their electoral decisions.
7
@Kathleen880: So you pay for auto and health insurance, though you resent it? What about homeowner's insurance?
I think you should stand up for your principles and refuse every kind of insurance. When the police take your car and the bank takes your house, you can sing the Battle Hymn of the Republic.
Don't you think?
2
Everybody shouting hooray who thinks that Trump’ll fix it might wish to reflect:
1. No infrastructure plan.
2. No real peace deal with the DPRK: they’re building nukes and missiles.
3. Iran didn’t fold. Their influence has increased.
4. No disarmament talks with Russia. Russian influence is growing.
5. No deal with China. Their influence is expanding.
6. No swamp-draining.
7. No Mexican-paid border wall.
8. Air quality’s worse. Water, too.
9. Coal, steel, car jobs...at best, minor increases that won’t last.
10. And of course...no health plan whatsoever.
Point is, you ain’t got jack, and you ain’t getting jack. The point is to chop away at gains made under Obama, and then to enrich the rich, and that’s what Trump et al are doing.
I suspect Barnum was wrong: the rate’s a lot higher than one sucker per minute.
11
Well, obviously, the easiest fix to this is to restore the individual mandate. (Only Trump would preen about bragging that his own modification to the law would be the cause of its failure).
But I can think of four options.
1) Go back to the bad old days of junk insurance, pre-existing condition denials, and medical bankruptcy.
2) Reinstate the individual mandate.
3) Go to Medicare for All
4) Hope the Fifth Circuit overturns this idiocy immediately.
2
Christian, if a partisan judge from Texas thinks he can make the lives of 133 million people worse by removing their only healthcare that they gained through Obamacare, then he should've never gone to a law school to become a jurist.
Mr. Reed O'Connor who should not be respected or referred to as a judge by the people going to his court deserves the ultimate anger and venom from the rest of the population of this country beside the millions of Americans who might lose their medical care if his judgement stands the appeal against his judgement by the State of California and 18 other states who made their oral arguments in from of him to keep the A.C.A. as it is.
We know that Trump very gleefully accepted the verdict as a testament to his power over a section of the population who dislike anything Obama had achieved as the president only because of the dark color of his skin.
But as we all know that this ruling by this partisan judge will be overturned by the United States court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit or the Supreme Court , Trump has no reason to be bragging about anything out of this fiasco.
3
ANYONE cheering such a partisan convoluted ruling must take their lithium, you are confused! It was clearly NOT the intent of congress or they would have struck down all of the law. Rulings MUST be firmly founded in law, not by a judges political proclivities. It ha angered me for decades we have gotten politicians for judges either right or left, NOT REAL judges. Democracy has become a shameful sham and we all suffer
1
There’s a lot of right-wing yelling that us libcommiesympjesushaters are hatin’ on Reed O’Connor merely because we loathe his entirely-just and well-grounded decision.
Nope, we loathe the decision because it’s a wonderful example of far-right nuttery driving a bogus decision.
Think I’m kidsing? Here’s what this shining judicial ace, a graduate of the South Texas School of Law, pulled last month.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Child_Welfare_Act
He declared that a law from the 1970s, which got in the way of adoption agencies when they yanked Indian kids away from their parents and families and farmed them out to white people just because, without due process, was un-Constitutional.
Guess why? You’ll love this: his reasoning was that ICWA gave at least some jurisdiction over adoption proceedings to tribal governments, which was therefore discriminatory. Yep...he basically accused the tribes that had been fighting to keep their kids of being racist.
That’s the kind of nuttery we’re talking about.
3
How anybody still can vote Republican, worse, how anybody still is a Republican is beyond me. By any aspect of public life, environment, compassion they are just pathetic.
Eternal shame.
O.v. Bismarck, an arch conservative of his time, installed general health care in ........1883 in Germany. " If anybody wants to call me socialist, I do not care". His words.
1
This expresses how I felt when the Left wing, partisan judges in San Francisco and Hawaii outlawed Trumps immigration ban on 6 countries the Obama administration found export terrorism (and which the Left called a “Muslim ban” even though two of the countries weren’t Muslim).
Thankfully the appellate courts reversed that decision as well.
7
Bernie:
Please run and save the nation from the abyss we are all falling into.
Only you have the vision to change things for the better.
The fact that ONE federal judge can cause so many ills for so many is just ludicrous if not barbarous.
The comments show how we get lost in stupid details and miss the big picture. The big picture of an enormous rip off.
Please run and bring us Rawlsian Justice.
This decision may, or may not withstand appeal, but please let’s not hear any screaming form liberals - who are proven cheerleaders for judicial activism - about how outrageous they find the opinion. Every time liberals engage in such hypocritical puling - most rational thinkers get a little nauseous.
2
What is partisan is this NYT analysis. Where in this article is the legal reasoning to show the ruling was not proper? In the 2012 NFIB decision, the Supreme Court ruled the Individual Mandate was unconstitutional under the Interstate Commerce Clause, but allowed the Mandate, because it triggered a tax, which Congress has the right to do. In 2017, this tax was eliminated, so the justification for ACA was eliminated. ACA cannot survive without the Individual Mandate, as pointed out by Congress, so the other features of ACA are not severable.
What a hypocritical howl from this editorial board, over partisan objections. Keep this in mind NYT, when you cheer on the illegal rulings pouring out of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
3
Now this corrupt and criminal Administration can also accurately be described as sadistic. What people with even an ounce of humanity would rejoice at taking away health insurance from millions of Americans? This Trump Republican Party is nothing less than a perpetrator of evil. It’s time of reckoning is coming.
1
I fall down on the side of Sen. Whitehouse who has talked about "judicial capture".
We’ve all heard of “regulatory capture” - it’s the big corporations – huge monopolies, that are supposed to BE regulated - by say, the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal trade commission, the Food and Drug Commission -these big corporations turn around and "capture" the governmental entities that are supposed to be regulating them. They turn the tables completely around.
During Justice Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings, Whitehouse pointed to 70 decisions over the recent years – all 5 to 4 – all favoring corporations, the rich, the powerful, trampling on workers’ rights, consumers’ rights, the right to be free from pollution, and related stuff.
The RATS cabal (R oberts; A lito; T homas; Scalia) often joined by Kennedy, gave us this!
Americans: your courts have been CAPTURED by the Reactionary Right, and filled with clowns such as Judge O'Connor, who the combination that shops these lawsuits around KNOWS will give these kinds of favorable ruling.
(Oh and BTW - you're not supposed to be able to "shop" cases around either - but obviously, this combination can do it).
WAKE UP, America.
2
The stories sound sad. But is this debate & article rational? Points not considered..
1. Obamacare passed on lies. Gruber banked on the “stupidity of the American voter” to conceal its true costs.
Google "the-gruber-confession"
2. Is it a right? Then what else is a right? Everyone has a right to 100s of thousands dollars of medical care? The money is not growing on trees. Just because that it is the other taxpayers doesn't make it a right to the costliest medicine in the world. Can I similarly claim a right to an costly car? https://healthcare.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=001602
3. Preexisting conditions - It is a euphemism to say people were irresponsible. They did not carry insurance before - but suddenly want coverage? Can I also buy insurance only after my car completely breaks down? The people who buy coverage all thru even then were healthy are the stupids? https://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-does-obamacare-mandate-health-insurance/
Will the millions of Trump supporters who will lose coverage keep supporting the animal and his corrupt judiciary? Yes, GOP Jesus says to die soon and give your money to billionaires on the way out.
This ruling demonstrates that Judge Reed O'Connor is so senile he has forgotten everything he ever learned about constitutional law. That is prima facie evidence he is incompetent and therefore should be impeached and removed from the bench. There are too many doddering fools making a hash of other people's lives to not speak out about this one.
1
Cristian, right-wing Republican zealots do not concern themselves with the niceties of law. If they did Traitor Trump would have been in jail a year ago.
If there are any "swing" or "independent" voters left out there, and you sat out or voted for the Republican in your Senate election, know that YOU are responsible for accelerating the destruction of democracy in this country. Letting the fascist "leader" of this country continue to pack the federal judiciary with his brand of judges is on you. I hope you're happy that millions of people could die or get much more ill because you didn't have the sense to stop McConnell and his crew from rubberstamping Trump's appointments.
Are you kidding me? First the Republicans try every devious trick under the sun to kill Oamacare; only to have John McCain courageously vote thumbs down as his last act of showing at least one Republican still had a shred of decency in their bones. Having failed miserably to pass legislation EVEN with a total stranglehold on all 3 branches of government; now one stinking Texas judge tries yet again to thwart millions of Americans who have been blessed to actually have health care coverage they would never have otherwise. If this is how low America has sunk to; GOD help your poor. They are Doomed!!
1
Gee liberals seem to have forgotten that Schumer and Pelosi just assured us there are no Obama or trump judges
So it’s settled
Obamacare is dead
2
This is beyond stupid. We need car insurance to legally drive a car. We need homeowner's insurance to buy a house. What in the world is so obscene about mandating that adults have health insurance coverage????? If Republicans could stop thinking about themselves long enough to think about the greater good, after a decade of ironing out the ACA issues we'll be seeing as many commercials marketing better coverage for lower rates from competing insurers as we currently experience with auto insurance.
Just when I was cozying up to the Republican Party, they decide to kill me. Go figure.
1
I'm a permanently disabled Grade 5 SAH survivor. My initial individual COBRA insurance premium in 2005 was $389/month. My monthly premium escalated to $2900 due to preexisting condition. When I became eligible for Medicare after the waiting period for disability my 3 neurological medications were $2K each during the Medigap.
ACA closed the Doughnut Hole and protects those with preexisting conditions. Medicare Plan D insurance no longer covers brand anticonvulsants. I was denied a cost exemption appeal despite my epilepsy specialist documenting the dizziness and balance problems and the fall risk caused by side effects of my generic anticonvulsant. I have managed the costs and the exception appeals during 13 years of recovery from severe brain injury.
US medical insurance remains a murky alphabet soup of unreasonable rules and regulations designed to deny care for policyholders while ensuring profit for stockholders .
2
With Judges like Reed O'Connor perhaps rule of the Cosa Nostra is better than the rule of law. In the future, first grade classes in social studies in places like Scandinavia will do studies explaining why developed so-called advanced countries which cannot provide decent health care for all its citizens. Its truly hard to fathom the level of backwardness of the society.
That so little concern is show by America for its citizens is shocking.
2
Please send this article to Chief Justice Roberts of the Supreme Court. He say's there are only neutral judges, not partisan's....that used to be the case which is why American's were more likely to trust their justice system. I don't trust any court at this point, and both party's are to blame.
Gerrymandering has to end so we can have 1 person 1 vote to decide our country's future.
Please raise your hand if you think there are no partisan judges. Yeah, thats what i thought....not many hand's anymore. It's a sad day that everything gets politicized.....on purpose. How can drug prices have a political agenda? How did our healthcare become a political football? Partisan Judges, that's how. This ruling will not stand. Lets see what the neutral non partisan Supreme court, says this time with Kavanaugh. Nothing partisan about him. Right?
1
Trump tweets that Nancy and Schumer should "fix it".
Why isn't he doing something right NOW, with his GOP Congress, to help the American people?
What is he waiting for?
He promised to come up with his own healthcare plan, that would "make us so happy", cover more Americans than Obamacare, and curb cost increases even more.
Why didn't he do anything for two years already? And we did he instead support Ryancare, which does the exact opposite, destroying the healthcare of a whopping 30 million Americans all while accelerating cost increases for the other ones, and is a disaster that only McCain and the Democrats saved us from?
Instead of keeping his campaign promise on healthcare, Trump is completely deregulating the most polluting big industries, which cannot but make America sick again.
And that, in itself, is so sickening to know ...
1
When can we impeach judge O'Connor? He is clearly a partisan, activist jurist that conservatives abhor, except when the jurist makes partisan decisions that they approve of.
1
I'd like it if Dr. Christine Blasey Ford could be afforded a front-row seat when this case and others of its magnitude reach the Supreme Court.
2
“A decision by a judge in Texas striking down the totality of the Affordable Care Act has little basis in law.”
Neither did the 4 Supreme Court votes to find the ACA unconstitutional the first time around, but they still counted. Maybe the Circuit Court of Appeals will reverse and the Supremes will refuse certiorare.
1
How can a judge rule one way, but another the opposite way? Seems to be all about who is best at finding certain desired needles in the legal haystacks of legislation. Or maybe here, imagined needles.
1
True, but it requires the GOP to help fix the broken American health care system.
It requires the GOP to ignore big special interest money from insurance corporations that are the root of the problem with our health care system. Private management of health insurance for decades has seen premium costs go up, coverage shrink all while corporate profits are unaffected.
That's gotta change.
The GOP-led 115th Congress' numerous attempts at "Repeal and Replace" were farcical. They were written by insurance corporation lobbyists and did not fix anything while insuring the corporate profit-taking status quo remained.
The GOP's "Repeal Only" failed thanks to one honorable GOP Senator.... John McCain.
So what now GOP-led Senate? It's either reform the ACA legislatively by working with the Democratic-led House, or vote of Medicare for all, or be voted out of the Senate during the 2020 Blue Tsunami.
Your choice Republican Senators.
Help We The People, and ignore insurance corporation lobby $$$.
After Congress reforms health care, they need to reform campaign finance laws to end big $$$ special interests' ruination of our democracy.
2
Most of the civilized world has universal health care. It has long been a cruel flaw that the otherwise greatest nation lacks it. It may take us until both Trump & the Repuplican Senate are replaced by Democrats, but the present crisis created by a grossly incompetent judge with contempt for his fellow Americans will energize American voters who respect both their fellow countrymen and the rule of law. This judges ruling will not stand.
1
I agree with the Democrats that having health insurance is the responsible thing to do in modern society. (I also think working qualifies, but that's another discussion)
I also agree we should cover everyone.
That's where I diverge from the Democrats ideas.
I disagree with the "one-size fits all" approach.
I disagree banning "catastrophic" plans.
I think people who use insurance at the emergency room for the common cold should be forced to pay the full amount out of pocket.
I think Big Pharma profits enough that they no longer need taxpayer $$$$ to do R&D.
I think tort reform would lower costs. (name a single other career whee you can be sued for millions of dollars for a mistake... a mistake ALL humans make... to err is human, after all.) Lawsuits should from GROSS negligence, not simple errors.
Is this just a judge presenting his portfolio to Trump as a job interview in case another Supreme Court seat opens?
1
Hoisted by their own petard liberals now bemoan judicial activism. Frankly, the ACA was poorly conceived and poorly executed. It might have been far better to have a public option or go for single payer with the required funding mechanisms. Instead they passed a bill that most had not even read.
My God! what kind of society is this where the party/President in power rejoice, after years of trying to sabotage the ACA, at the thought of denying medical care to the 20,000 million who obtained it under ACA? What kind of society is this that rejoices in throwing millions of people with pre-existing conditions back to Emergencvy Rooms for substandard and non cost-effective treatment? Oh the joys of black lung disease and no coverage! If at least this ruling only affected those "deplorables" who voted this evil Republican Party and this evil President Trump, a measure of justice would have been achieved. But my heart cries for the millions who despite not voting for this, are now left out in the cold.
To those of you who rejoice thinking that this will lead to a single payer health care system, dream on. For all its imperfections the ACA was a positive step towards bringing some improvements to a market based system that left people at the mercy of rabid Capitalistic forces. To those who fault Obama for not pushing for a univerasal single payer system: you seem to forget that the ACA became the compromise given the Republicans staunch opposition to the system all democratic industrialized nations have instituted. American exceptionalism? Sure, we rank 37 in health care in the world behind Costa Rica and ahead of Slovenia, and also rank lower in infant mortality and life expectancy. shame on us!
2
Hear the collective gasp of all US citizens. This is a disaster, I agree for once with Trump. Except it is a disaster for republicans. It is days late and trillions of US tax dollars short. Their dirty-good-for-nothing tactics have been exposed.
1
"Texas and its allied states know the game and shop these lawsuits right into Judge O’Connor’s courtroom."
Like when parties manage to shop immigration cases into Judge Derrick Watson's court in Hawaii?
Both sides do it, so why is it only called out when it is against the caller's position?
1
Trump thinks most judges are so called judges. But this Texan is one he loves. We can easily square this. He did him a favor. Not so much like Cohen did him a favor, but also a lawyer type who does favors. How should we reward this fellow. I got a few ideas and not printable.
1
I am no great political strategist, especially for a Democratic Party infused with a cultural radicalism I reject. Nonetheless, this absurd ruling will only stain the Republicans with their own hatred of the public health and institutions of the American people--to say nothing of what it will do to their mock hysteria about judicial activism. You don't have to prefer a President Bernie Sanders to realize that the Democrats may have been far wiser in 2010 to compel the political system to extend Medicare to the whole American people. That is a system the vast majority of conservative older people in this country totally accept, and so do their children. Nobody could easily cry it down with the usual Republican epithets of "socialism," etc. Let's hope this ruling leads the party and the American people in that direction. And, as other commentators have noted, this foolish Judge has just given the Democrats a goose with golden political eggs aplenty. Love it, Mitch McConnell!
The racist resistance to the ACA act is astounding. What the republicans could have done is simply modify it but, because Obama gets the lion's share of the credit for the ACA, they won't let it stand.
2
So don't panic, People. Stay the course. Let's ask for some well-worded and cogent comments from higher courts.
1
as a supporter of the law, I couldn't be happier he did this. in the words of Yamamoto: “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve "
133 million Americans with pre-existing conditions. Game set match for the dems in 2020.....
3
I agree with you and I hope you’re right, but as someone with life-threatening and costly pre-conditions, I’m terrified of being bankrupted or dead in the interim.
3
You know, I can't think of anything more "evil" than helping people to stay healthy and alive. Or, at least I would, if I were a modern Republican.
2
ROBERTS NEEDS TO STEP UP THE PLATE and speak out against this outsized Texas power grab, claiming to wipe Obamacare off the books completely. Look at what Texas politics results in. The flooding of Houston was, in no small part, due to the fact that the city had required no zoning laws. Now, of course, the people who lived there, are lining up for handouts from the rest of us who have had to live with zoning laws to prevent such devastating wreckage from flooding. I feel for them--truly I do. But the State of Texas was derelict in its duty to preserve, protect and defend the state constitution, along with the US Constitution, by instituting a nation of laws. Not a nation ruled by the whims of extremist partisans who wish to eliminate the 99% so the 1% can own everything lock, stock and barrel.
2
I don't understand a political party that wants Americans to suffer, which has no concern for the environment, which seeks a return to the 19th century.
6
So some conservative states' attorneys general decided to push their version of an Obamacare challenge through a federal circuit that is known to be somewhat conservative. And the surprise in this is what?
Here's a proposal. Conservative parties will stop filing their challenges through the 5th as soon as liberal ones stop filing their through the 9th. Deal?
Didn't think so.
2
@MinnRick
That's not how justice works you know ... ;-)
It's not because a liberal judge strikes down a GOP law or a GOP judge a Democrats' law that by definition, those decisions are partisan.
A partisan decision means a decision that is NOT based on legal evidence at all. In other words, a decision that invents arguments that aren't fact-based and distort normal logic.
That is clearly the case here.
As to the 9th circuit: there's nothing extraordinarily happening there. Trump just made up yet another lie in order to turn the legitimate philosophical differences between left and right into a war where somehow the left is by definition bad and the right ... well, by definition right. It's this kind of fake wars that is destroying America today.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/26/us/politics/fact-check-trump-ninth-circuit.html
This is the Republicans' and especially McConnell's grand strategy: What the voters won't allow Congress to accomplish can be done by judicial fiat.
The bottom line remains the same. and needs to be remembered and repeated for the next two years: No matter what they may say, REPUBLICANS WANT TO TAKE AWAY YOUR HEALTH CARE.
6
That Judge O'Connor intentionally delayed the decision until after the midterms, should be grounds for impeachment.
A judge who believes his job is to help one party and hurt the other is unfit for office.
3
@Sparky The ruling was delayed to after the signup deadline for next year's coverage.
If the ACA is unconstitutional without the individual mandate and constitutional with it, then the act to repeal the mandate was the one that violated the Constitution.
3
Placing one's trust in the current U.S. Supreme Court to do the right thing on much of anything is a fool's errand.
5
"A Partisan Ruling on Obamacare"
If this ruling was truly partisan, there is only one possible explanation:
1.- The judge is a conservative and he needs to have his head examined. Why do I say this? Easy, this puts the health debate squarely in the forefront, with a lot of heat on all conservative republicans who assured their voters that they were all for keeping the protections for existing conditions. In other words, it plays into the Democrats' hands.
2
It's pretty irresponsible to accuse the legal system of partisanship. The legal system requires everyone to believe the courts produce "fair" results.
There's 242 years of US laws spanning millions if not billions of pages. Additionally, every single word in those pages needs to be interpreted. Educational background, life experience, work experience, ect will color that interpretation.
There are 179 circuit judges, all with slightly different interpretations. Finding the judge with the most "sympathetic" view is nothing new. That is why certain liberale cases invariably go through the 9th circuit.
179 experts of an incredibly complex topic are going to come to 179 different conclusions. That is why we have SCOTUS: to make the final rules relatively uniform regardless of what court the case was originally heard in.
Shame on you Cristian Farias for contributing to dividing our country even further for a few extra clicks. Is the ad revenue worth it?
1
The Individual Mandate is an idea from the conservative Heritage Foundation, that the Republican Party supports.
Conservatives (those that can make a lot of money off private for-profit health care system), couldn't find anything to bring suit against in ObamaCare, except their own idea - the Individual Mandate.
And where is the Republican plan that will give great care, at an affordable cost, and cover everyone, even the indigent, and those with pre-existing conditions? They don't have one of course. They are all talk and no plan, because if order for any insurance (either public or private) to work, you need to have enough number of people who will pay in, and luckily won't need the services or money of the insurance company. Do the math, or hire an actuary to do the math for you.
3
It’s time for universal health care.
3
Funny. When a Democratic judge overturns law favored by Republicans, you never refer to it as a partisan ruling.
Why is that?
3
@JND
Because it almost never is, and is instead based on facts , legal precedent and serious arguments.
But if you can find a decision that does not correspond to those criteria, please let us know which one?
1
The decision that the federal mandate cannot be severed from the rest of the ACA contradicts the fact that the state of New Jersey passed its own mandate and re-insurance program to stabilize its exchange. They demonstrated as a state that the federal mandate is not necessary.
2
Universal health coverage does not remotely solve all the issues with healthcare. But it should be a fundamental human right, particularly for first world countries with ample resources. Denying that right should be a criminal.
Fortunately, the US is the richest country on earth and we can easily afford care equal to that provided by Canada and most European countries. The good news, since we probably overspend by at least $800 billion per year, is that we don't have to spend more dollars to get there. We just need to spend more efficiently.
Just as an example, Kaiser Permanente in northern California, a non-profit, spent about $6,300 per member for 2017. Overall, the US spent $10,700, but it's hard to believe those outside Kaiser received better care. (Many studies validate Kaiser's quality and cost effectiveness.) And that's not to mention the many who are still uninsured or underinsured.
Getting to universal cost-effective care won't be trivial, but that's the direction to move. This partisan move by a partisan judge is a feeble attempt to stop the unstoppable.
1
@Michael Tyndall - Fundamental right? That's your opinion and that's all.
I wouldn't want the healthcare system that is in Canada and European countries after seeing what poor care my relatives receive. Universal healthcare is the wrong direction to move. Overspending? The amounts you quote will be trivial compared to the overspending if the gov't takes over healthcare...
@Zman
1. It happens to be the opinion of the vast majority of the American people.
2. ALL studies show that healthcare is better in Europe than in the US, and cheaper, and people are much happier about it than in the US.
Conclusion: the only way to still deny basic healthcare in a Western, fully developed economy today is to decide to base your opinions not on proven studies but on your own, extremely small and arbitrary personal experience. And why would that be a reasonable - let alone good - thing to do ... ?
2
I think you are correct. Laissez Faire should be maintained in the management of Healthcare markets as well as any other market.
I believe that Obama was very wrong in 2008. I believe the government should not have gotten involved in propping up the corporations and financial institutions. The free market should have been allowed to prosper freely
Mr. Obama was also wrong to pursue a Healthcare Act that involves the government.
Healthcare is not a right. It is to be purchased as one purchases a car. If one cannot purchase barebones medical care then one should seek care through the many charities that are available.
I strongly believe that all corporations, including Healthcare corporations, should be allowed to assure shareholders always earn a profit, and that the officers of those Healthcare corporations are to be awarded whatever bonuses the market can bear.
If we would follow through wholeheartedly in adhering to a real market economy then Healthcare corporations, along with all corporations, will work for the greater good.
@NoDak, there is no free market in healthcare! You can’t shop around; It’s a fantasy! If you do, there is zero pricing transparency. You can’t get a cost until you get the bill. Read Stevhen Brill. Have you ever had a serious health issue? Have you ever had an acute, life-threatening health event? I have; too many of them. Try navigating the free-market when you’re having a 100% blockage Widowmaker heart attack; or when you are having an acute heart failure episode & flash pulmonary edema; or when you’re going into anaphylactic shock from a wasp sting. $250,000 later (for that year), I’ll make sure I shop around online before my next emergency. With life-threatening health conditions, you have a healthcare team that helps you manage your illness & has relationships with you & the other members of your care team. You don’t look for the cheapest provider for each doctor visit as if you’re getting your car repaired; not if you want to live. I have worked my tail off my entire life. As a small manufacturer, I provided employment & a good livelihood for 40 people. I paid my taxes & have been a productive member of society. I have contributed. And I’m sick & tired of the rapacious, hypocritical, Darwinian, trickle-down, free-market fantasy propagated by the GOP. Universal healthcare IS a right. I would WELCOME paying $20,000 a year more in taxes to, as the Preamble says, “promote the general welfare” & know that my wife & all my fellow Americans have healthcare.
1
Health is not a Federal right, like speech, press or religion. States can decide to provide universal health care if they wish. The United States is not required to provide healthcare for everyone.
2
@John Quinn
Except that the majority in this country strongly believes that the Constitution says the exact opposite, and even independently from the Constitution wants the US to become a fully civilized nation like any other on earth.
Now can you please tell us why denying people health coverage because they have asthma would somehow be a nobel goal that we as a nation should absolutely pursue ... ?
Any concrete ideas?
1
@John Quinn, It should be.
Congress is still in session, they could vote next week to charge people a penalty of $1 if they don't acquire health insurance. Congress could make this decision null-and-void and go away. While they're at it, have them re-name ACA Trumpcare, so that the president's ego will be stroked and he can, with the stroke of a pen, claim a great accomplishment.
And it would be, too. Far cheaper than an appeal and battle in the Supreme Court. Far less political cost for Republicans, too. The midterms made that loud and clear.
3
If you think this decision is bad, just wait until Mitch gets done packing the federal bench.
Way down the road, if the Democrats ever get a California-like supermajority, then they can eliminate the lifetime tenure of federal judges.
2
Trump's Republicans work hard to erase the very existence of Barack Obama as a past president of the United States. The Affordable Care Act is one enormous accomplishment of Obama's term in office, and Republicans simply cannot abide this. Their recent ludicrous insistence that they have their own program (has anybody actually seen it?) that protects those with pre-existing conditions is proof that they have no idea what they are doing other than hoping to erase Obama's progress on this issue. The Texas judge who has come up with this new decision is just another Republican hack trying desperately to "change the narrative." Sorry, Republicans, but Obama STILL looks far, far, far better than Trump and anything Trump's flacks have tried to accomplish.
4
Healthcare is insuring the person, that is, the corporation, is healthy. As Greenspan foresaw, deregulated economic financial markets must rule in the United States, and as the Healthcare Industries are like any business they should not be regulated by the government or indeed by any altruistic malarkey found in Medicaid or Medicare or The Affordable Care Act. Meritocracy, the basis of Class and Wealth Divisions in America, must likewise carry through to healthcare. As the Republican God Ayn Rand might put it, “One is only eligible to the healthcare for which one can directly pay. The government is not to interfere in illness or death.” As Ronnie stated, "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."
Let’s put this issue of healthcare into a cinematic context. Imagine Rick and Ilsa and Victor, all very ill, standing at the entrance to a healthcare clinic, which none of them can afford because of losing their jobs, and homes in the next recession. Rick turns to Ilsa. He first coughs for five minutes because of his severe pneumonia, and then he says in a hoarse whisper
“Ilsa, I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.”
Victor and Ilsa cough wretchedly and nod as a slight fog seems to descend. They all three turn, step off the curb into the crosswalk where they are struck by a bus unseen in the fog
1
@NoDak Peoples' reservations about further government involvement are a little more complicated than that.
In 1960 Medical costs were 5% of GDP
In 2016 Medical costs were 17.9% of GDP
So clearly there is uncontrolled, unstatinable, price increases.
Secondly, Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, and marketplace subsidies already consume 26% of the Federal Budget. We are giving 1/3 of the country bare bones coverage while using up 26% of the budget. So it's clear the government has been unable to reign in costs.
So a significant group of people are asking: If the government can't manage our current medical programs how will expanding the programs stabilize prices? The historical record shows the government has failed on this issue. Why should we commit even more resources when they can't even manage the resources they have now?
1
@Jake
Medical costs have increased as a share of GDP, but let's look at the history - 1960 - 5%, 1970 - 6.9%, 1980 - 8.7%, 1990 - 12.1%, 2000 - 13.3%, 2008 - 16.6%
Since the ACA passed, 2009-2014 was in the 17.2-17.4% range every year (not uncontrolled)
It did move up to 17.7 in 2015 and 17.9 in 2016. Since Trump and the Republican Congress started doing everything they could to undermine it, it has continued to 18.2% this year. https://www.statista.com/statistics/184968/us-health-expenditure-as-percent-of-gdp-since-1960/
I agree more needs to be done to rein in costs, but it looks like the ACA was doing a pretty good job of reining in medical costs until Rs started messing with it.
2
@KCL That can be almost entirely attribute to the 2008 recession. 0.5% was generous.
"So what we have is informed speculation that the ACA may be contributing to the slower growth in health care cost. But comments like Van Hollen’s — that the Affordable Care Act “has resulted in significantly reducing the per capita cost of health care” — would surely lead most viewers to believe that he’s saying Americans are paying less for health care. That’s not the case. Per capita health care costs are climbing, albeit at a historically moderate pace. CMS economists peg the bulk of that slowdown to the recession."
Article: ACA Impact on Per Capita Cost of Health Care By Robert Farley"
The ACA is all the wrong type of government intervention. The policy did nothing to address the fundamental market problems of:
1) High barrier of entry in the medical market
2) Lack of "perfect information", seen in opaque pricing
3) The inelastic demand of medical services.
4) Medical monopolies
Any one of those factors distorts a free market. The US should be implementing correction to those issues, not creating another failed government program.
50% of the budget is taken up by Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, Subsidizes, and Social Security. All of those programs aren't great either. The US government is simply not capable of running large programs, they have repeatedly demonstrated that.
As a commentator on NPR said this AM, the republicans are like the dog chasing the ACA car, and now that they have caught the car, what are they going to do with it?
If the Texas ruling is not overturned, they now have to come up with their plan, and something for Trump to put his name on.
3
No worries. The ACA is not going anywhere. This is not even a set back. This just galvanizes the anti GOP sentiments of millions and grows the support for the Democrats. Thanks Judge for the nudge.
3
This late in the game, what qualifies a Federal District Judge in Texas to challenge Federal law?
Federal District Judges in California, Oregon, and Washington do it all the time?
Can District Judges pick and choose which Federal laws they like and don't like?
2
So, .. ONCE AGAIN, ... isn't it time for the GOP to replace and then repeal the ACA?
Nope, way too politically risky.
When I voted in NYC judges were on Democrat, Republican, Liberal or Conservative ticket. I don't know the latter two parties still exist but usually the Republicans paired with Conservatives, Liberals with Democrats. Rarely one judge could could be endorsed by all four parties. Generally you knew what you were getting. There was nothing nefarious about being conservative or liberal.
The judges decision reasonable. It follows the previous Supreme Court decision. So he did his job. Whatever decision the Supreme Court makes Trump says he will do better. I doubt he has any idea but do the congressional Democrats have the desire to improve.
@JoeG you didn't read the article. The judge's decision is not what the Supreme court upheld. It will be reversed, as there is no legal basis for this decision.
2
Oh, please forgive me. I thought it was a threat to the republic to criticize a decision by a federal judge and an act of treason to suggest that the judge might have a partisan political bias.
Obama followed by Trump has brought us to a very dangerous point in the history of our experiment in democracy. Democrats and the rest of us will rue the day they declared Trump an "illegitimate" President and themselves "the resistance." People now feel fully justified in dismissing the authority of any institution not controlled by someone they favor.
6
Let me help: what we actually resent is right-wingers endlessly suing over decided issues, judge-shopping until they find some clown who graduated from the 116th best law school in the country writing a dippy and extra-legal decision that he didn’t even have the guts to accompany with an injunction, and then getting cheered by an irresponsible fool of a President.
Or to put it another way: right-wingers hated Obama because he’s black, disagreed with them on some things, and they’d been thouroughly propagandized into believing that somebody took away their country.
We ‘uns loathe having Trump as Prez because he’s a lifelong wealthy greedhead who lies incessantly, and is gleefully trashing our country while imbeciles cheer. Oh, and because his willful ignorance appears to be catching. Among other things, you guys have no idea how badly your kids are being hosed.
Literally, it’s because I’D be a better president than this fool. By miles. Scarier than that idea, I cannot get.
1
The worst thing that could happen now is that Senate Republicans write a "repeal and replace" bill just sweet enough to tempt House Democrats to prove their "bipartisan" spirit and vote for it. The best thing that could happen now is for House Democrats to put a full-fledged single-payer universal plan on the table, take it to the people, pass it and make Senate Republicans vote it down. If Democrats don't take this opportunity to fix our healthcare system once and for all, they are no better than Republicans.
5
@abigail49 Why do you think a single payer system would control prices? Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, and marketplace subsidies already consume 26% of the Federal Budget.
That is an enormous amount for what we are getting in terms of services. If the US government can't manage the costs of those programs, what makes you think they will be able to manage a single payer system that would be 3X larger than the current medical programs we have?
1
@Jake Not sure what costs you're talking about, but yes, I'd trust a federal agency to do at least as well as the cartel of major insurance corporations. Premiums were rising annually all the years before the ACA and there are no incentives for insurance companies to do anything but pass through provider charges to consumers, raise deductibles, deny claims, exclude sick people and limit payouts. No federal agency head I know of pulls down multi-million-dollar salaries, bonuses, stock options and other perks like corporate CEOs do either.
3
@abigail49 Okay then how do you explain this?
Private Healthcare Spending: $5032 per capita
Public Healthcare Spending: $4860 per capita
Percent of People On Public Plans: 37.7%
Percent of People On Private Plans: 67.2%
So despite all those "million dollar salaries, bonuses, stock options, ect" Private insurers cover 80% more people for only 3.5% more money compared to public insurers.
This little exercise actually showed the US would save money completely privatizing the healthcare industry.
Also another fun fact. The average society security payment is $1000 a month. If that money had all be invested in an IRA style account in an S&P500 index fund the average payment would be $10,000 a month.
The US government has absolutely no incentive to decrease costs and improve quality in anything they do. They have infinite money. The Private sector needs to continually improve value or they will go under and there will be no "million dollar bonuses" or even a paycheck for that matter.
You got your analysis was backwards and completely ignored incentives.
The Affordable Care Act provides health insurance to 9 million people (mostly poor). Out of 330 million Americans. For that middle class wage earners are being taxed and if they want Obamacare for themselves, they will have to pay $3000 monthly premiums and contend with $6000-$12,000 deductible (has anyone ever gone to the website to see how crazy expensive even the cheapest policies are). The ACA was supposed to be affordable for ALL Americans - it’s not. Only for the small group the rest of Americans are forced to pay for.
Why should we be forced to pay for this? It’s poorly thought out policy that is failing before our eyes. Just expand Medicaid to pay for the poor.
2
@AVR ~
The offer to expand Medicaid support was upfront. Want to learn about the states that REFUSED that funding?
Now indeed, there is that "donut hole" for people who don't get insurance from their employer and can't get support on premiums from the ACA. And issue that was known from day one.
And guess what? Middle class taxpayers pay for the benefits to public employees, and ALL of us consumers pay for the benes that corporations offer to encourage people to work for them.
We also all pay for farm subsidies and more weapons and ... well, the top 1% pay less these days.
Which group has denied the ability to fix and upgrade the ACA?
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I don't like Obamacare and didn't vote for Obama. But just because the "tax" payment was removed and no longer helps pay for the rest of the bill, doesn;t mean the bill is unconstitutional. The COngress will just have to fix it. The court should not get involved in a bad bill. This judge will be over-ruled.
1
In that case, is the FICA (Federal INSURANCE Contributions Act) that funds Social Security and Medicare (and that all American workers are required to pay) unconstitutional?
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@Denise
And what about the part of taxpayer money that goes to hundreds of billions of dollars a year in subsidies for the wealthiest oil companies ... ?
Strange that somehow forcing the American people to subsidize ultra-wealthy CEOs who destroy our entire climate isn't seen by Republicans as "unconstitutional" or "limiting ordinary citizens' freedom", isn't it ... ?
1
So the republicans ran on the promise of making sure people with pre existing conditions were covered. And now this ruling would do away with that. And the republicans are trying to act like they are happy? Either they’re happy or they misrepresented themselves during the mid term elections. I guess they want to dismantle the ACA and replace it with the same thing and take credit for it.
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@Oliver
In a June court brief, Justice Department officials contended that, once the insurance mandate’s penalty is gone next month, that move will invalidate the ACA’s consumer protections, such as its ban on charging more or refusing to cover people with preexisting medical conditions. But the administration argued that many other parts of the law could be considered legally distinct and thus can continue. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/federal-judge-in-texas-rules-obama-health-care-law-unconstitutional/2018/12/14/
I'm no lawyer, so I don't see how removing a mandate requires the removal of consumer protections, but that was the Trump administration's position in court.
Wonder why all those Republicans insisted that preexisting would still be covered.
1
OK, so severing the requirement to have insurance has rendered the entire ACA unconstitutional, per Texas judge. Might that then make the tax bill that stripped the mandate also unconstitutional since Congress could not cherry pick the provisions laid out by the ACA?
Wondering....
4
"It’s instead a predictable exercise in motivated reasoning — drafted by a jurist with a history of ruling against policies and laws advanced by President Barack Obama."
And then there's the 9th Circuit that does whatever it can to thwart Trump. Same, same.
Not sure where all this will end one day, but from here--seems even more divided and contentious in the short-term, till 2020 for certain.
If Trump makes it a second time--civil unrest on the left?
4
@Alice's Restaurant
You can regularly rule decisions made by a political opponent in DC unconstitutional, but that in itself doesn't mean yet that those rulings are partisan.
You have a partisan ruling when something like this happens AND there is no real legal evidence supporting such a ruling.
That's the case here, but not at al when it comes to the 9th Circuit.
So once again, there's no equivalency between both parties here, when it comes to corruption.
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@Ana Luisa
Keep the fantasy -- "there's no equivalency between both parties here" -- going. 9th Circuit bench rules from Lenin's Bay Area.
Fact: Nothing constitutional about Obamacare. It was a Roberts freebee for Obama because he didn't have the courage to knock it down.
I support the ACA as the best we could do at the time. A key flaw is that the law does not contain a sever ability clause. Without it, a court finding that a provision of the unconstitutional has no choice but to invalidate the entire bill. Small but accurate legal point.
While this decision does not stop the ACA in its tracks, it does create substantial uncertainty. If the Supreme Court ultimately upholds the district court, of course, then the law would be invalid.
If this happens, it could be a political opportunity. Invalidating the ACA eliminates protection for patients with pre-existing conditions. The Democrats should plan for the House to pass legislation restoring protections for consumers in late summer make September and October about likely Senate Republican stonewalling of the House plan to protect those with pre-existing conditions as part of a larger health care package in response to an adverse Supreme Court judgment.
In this scenario, Republicans in Congress have only bad choices during an election where they have many more vulnerable Senators facing re-election than do the Democrats and where most Republicans likely will be running away from the Tweeter in Chief during his re-election bid. Unless, of course, he somehow no longer is in office by then.
Bottom line: bad decision exploiting a fault in the ACA, uncertain approval by the Supreme Court and a potentially powerful opportunity for Democrats in 2020.
2
This is why judges must be qualified! Judges who are appointed or elected because they are idealogues may not believe in democracy! After all, many conservatives are now at the point where they want votes suppressed to maintain power. Judges appointed or elected due to ideological reasons may have little investment in the rule of law. They may be committed to getting and maintaining minority rule. With the increasing militarization of police and border patrol, this is very dangerous. We need to do away with lifetime appointments, and ensure judges are qualified and committed to rule of law.
4
As farmers have had their incomes cut in half to more than 3/4th for the last 3 years, many depended on ACA for insurance. We don't belong to any groups or have employers that pay for us. Ordinarily we make enough money to pay for a reasonable policy. Sadly the premiums and deductibles have become so high that you might as well not have insurance. With the incomes cut so badly we could finally afford coverage with ACA. And anyone that thinks those premiums wouldn't have increased without the ACA is delusional. The health insurance companies are winning no matter what partisan talking points are applied to health care costs.
17
This is just a ploy to get this matter to the Supreme Court, where it stands a good chance of being upheld.
4
@michael Paine
Or not, with Kavanaugh's help.
The good news is that this partisan ruling will be reversed.
The better news is that the ill-advised lawsuit, leaving Americans without any protections when it comes to healthcare, was engineered by, you guessed it, the GOP.
Did they not get the memo with the mid-term results, where Dems campaigned heavily and won on healthcare as THE main issue? This will simply peel away more votes from the GOP, and in the end, nothing about Obamacare will have changed.
Thank you, GOP! You just gave Dems everywhere a big lift to their 2020 campaigns.
13
@HeyJoe I agree if The Left can't use this they need to pack it in
@HeyJoe . Republicans just need to keep to their winning strategy: full-throated racism, contempt for science, contempt for the environment and aggressive pro-gun lunacy.
This formula keeps on winning for them, so why would they abandon it?
We are witnessing the fallout of a major defect in our Constitution: There are no "checks and balances" on the high courts.
It's easy to see what is just around the bend for us - this new SCOTUS will be upholding this judge's findings, thus reversing the earlier rulings mentioned here.
What would help us all is a Constitutional requirement for the vote of a Super Majority by SCOTUS to reverse precedent. Consider the "Super Majority" should be the greater of either 2/3s to reverse, or equivalent numbers in the original ruling such as Row vs Wade 7-2.
1
Texas Republicans are all hat and no cattle. Texas A.G. Ken Paxton said
“Our lawsuit seeks to effectively repeal Obamacare, which will give President Trump and Congress the opportunity to replace the failed social experiment with a plan that ensures Texans and all Americans will again have greater choice about what health coverage they need and who will be their doctor.””
[ https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/14/health/obamacare-unconstitutional-texas-judge.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage ]
But the trump congress failed in their last attempt to pass a healthcare law; now, with a Democratic House, trumpcare won’t see the light of day. Trumpcare is the failed social experiment. Texas Republicans are soooo dumb.
11
The Circuit Court should reverse this decision under stare decisis. The Supreme Court should then decline to hear it.
This is an obvious case of venue shopping for a highly partisan judge.
14
If the federal government cannot require citizens to buy health insurance, how can states require citizens to buy automobile insurance?
7
The states have the “Police Power “, which consists of all power not reserved for the Federal Government. If it isn’t specified in the Constitution, they can do it.
Most-in fact all those people who are working for the US Government have one of the best healthy insurance available with more than one half premium paid by the government. They don’t know or care to know how any ordinary citizen is paying for the outrageous insurance premiums and poor coverage until the ACA came along some six years ago or so. It’s a strange ruling of the Texas judge even after majority of Americans voted with health care as main issue for the past November elections. Is there no common sense in those thoughtless and maybe heartless people that it’s function of the government to help with healthcare for for those who could least afford?
1
Here's how American politics works. Somebody tries to do something to solve a serious problem that requires collective action and a contribution based on peoples ability to pay. Then Republicans do everything they can to stop such an action or destroy it if it gets put into place.
11
Looks like the lesson of the mid-terms was lost on Reed O'Connor.
Let us celebrate the Gone Old Party!
6
...and while Trump is Screech-Tweeting "Mitch and Nancy" (fix it), he's had two years to demand "Mitch & Ryan" fix it.
Of course, those twenty or so Republican governors and Attorney's General should be quite pleased with themselves; as should the voters who elected them.
4
So you voted against us in Wisconsin? So you did it around the country to protect individuals' access to affordable healthcare? Today we give you our answers.
To working class and rural voters who won't be able to get healthcare while their environments will be poisoning them:
Eat cake!
6
It means that contrary to the GOP myth, it’s conservative judges who exercise their partisan judicial activism. As a lawyer, I am constantly being disappointed by how the courts are being polticised by conservatives for the purpose of destroying rights affordered to humans while they expand the “rights” afforded to corporations, billionaires and churches.
Conservative jurists are no longer judges they are cyphers for whatever conservative group comes before them.
13
This illustrates the true “prize” that McConnell, Evangelicals, and big business have been going after since Trump’s election. They don’t want justice, they want to control and the influence to change the country not for the good of all, but for the good of the few at the expense of the rest.
Putting these types of judges in place cements it for years.
Continue to vote in every election and call your representatives to let them know how you feel.
6
It would appear that the good judge does not wish his republican soulmates to do well in the next two years leading to the 2020 elections. Taking this judgement and the power grab in Wisconsin into consideration, it would appear that self-sabotage is on the republican menu going forward.
6
@Alison Cartwright
And the power grab in New Jersey?
It seems to me that love of country includes the desire to equalize opportunity & rights of all its individual citizens in order to benefit the nation as a whole. That would include universal access to education & health care as priorities. Neither of these 2 rights are for sale to various competing, for profit business interests. They are rights granted to individuals by virtue of being US citizens - intended to raise the strength of the nation as a whole. Of course there are costs to this core belief & national purpose & thus, every citizen who benefits from these fundamental rights agrees to pitch in with paying a fair share of the tax meant to sustain these core values of a nation seeking to keep itself whole & to uplift itself.
From Kindergarten & Grade 1, children are naturally learning the developmental tasks of social rights & responsibilities. In countries with Universal access to free education & health care for all, there is a seamless, conflict-free acceptance that this is part & parcel of being a fortunate citizen of one's country.
The conflict arises only when competing, for-profit Insurance Companies are allowed to disrupt this evolved cultural, civilized & human accomplishment. Ask any Canadian, Australian, Kiwi, Brit, French, Swiss, Swede, Irish, Scot, German, or in fact, any citizen of the 33 out of the 34 developed nations which provide Universal Health Care whether they would swap for US Insurers' brands of coverage & guess their answer.
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@Perspective
The last three or so years should have informed you that the GOP at no point acts on or has love of country or cares one wit about fairness, reasonableness or decency.
The GOP, and all of its minions has one Prime Directive: the ever greater concentration of wealth and power on behalf of the wealthy and powerful. That’s why its minions in the Supreme Court have ruled that money is speech and can’t be regulated, and why corporations are persons.
Today they look the other way in regard to treason, indecency, infidelity, lawlessness, brutality, when it acts in their interests. They have no principles beyond the prime directive.
This should not be some new notion to anyone with a pulse.
7
For some commentors here fist-pumping that Government is no longer *involved*, it would be wise to understand what happened:
No ACA also means no employer-provided health insurance. Under the ruling, your employer has every right to send a letter Monday informing you it is cancelling company health insurance benefits effective January 1, 2019 (if it wants to). Nothing in the decision- even without an injunction, prevents an employer from doing so.
IRS Form 1095-C, Employer-Provided Health Insurance is provided every year along with the annual W-2. The Individual Mandate covered employer sponsored health insurance. So, don't get too overjoyed about the current decision.
6
Shameful in the richest nation on Earth we can't provide something as simple as healthcare to our people. Why should the World look up to the US when we treat our people like this?
11
@Jacquie I want to allay your concerns, Jacquie.
NO ONE looks up to the US. The whole world regards our country with revulsion and contempt.
I remember reading an essay by the philosophy professor Philip Kitcher where he points out that if the public sphere takes over health care and other social services this tends to loosen the grip of religion on citizens. I think in America the opposition to universal healthcare is partly driven by the desire to keep citizens in the thralls of religious organizations.
5
I hope all the people that voted for Trump are happy with all the winning. Me..... I'am still waiting for the PROMISED better health insurance,lower prices an medicine,and the 10 percent tax break.
14
Everyone seems increasingly unconcerned about the continued political criticism of the judiciary which undermines one our three branches of government. Trump does it, Roberts rebuked him, and yet this editorial board writer has no problem repeating our leader's mistakes by politicizing the judiciary. Don't do it. It is wrong, again.
3
Are compulsory payments to Social Securityi and Medicare unconstitutional?
8
I have my doubts that this ill-reasoned decision will stand against appeals. That said, maybe this is just what we need to get the medicare for all ball rolling. Ironic that such a sea change could be perpetrated by GOP apparatchiks...
4
Republican policy is effectively murder. Full stop.
8
The possibility of causing more misery, suffering, and death: what joy for Republicans!
13
Let us pray...
2
This column sadly is devoid of any actual legal analysis and therefore is a waste of time.
4
@Alan Fairley: How would you know that if you haven't read it?
1
The Republican Party has become the Greatest Satan.
8
Hey seniors, if you think the potential full repeal of the ACA won’t negatively impact Medicare, you’re sadly mistaken. A Kaiser study notes:
“The 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA) included many provisions affecting the Medicare program and the 57 million seniors and people with disabilities who rely on Medicare for their health insurance coverage. Such provisions include reductions in the growth in Medicare payments to hospitals and other health care providers and to Medicare Advantage plans, benefit improvements, payment and delivery system reforms, higher premiums for higher-income beneficiaries, and new revenues.”
With the repeal of the ACA, it was noted: “The increase in Medicare spending would likely lead to higher Medicare premiums, deductibles, and cost sharing for beneficiaries, and accelerate the insolvency of the Medicare Part A trust fund.”
https://www.kff.org/health-reform/issue-brief/what-are-the-implications-of-repealing-the-affordable-care-act-for-medicare-spending-and-beneficiaries/
The repeal of the ACA will seriously impact the health and quality of life for seniors too.
7
@Topaz Blue - You're right. The GOP Medicare Part D allowed private Medicare Advantage insurance, and paid the companies 15% more than regular Medicare paid for the same services. The ACA stopped that overpayment and as a result, according to the CBO, lengthened the life of Medicare by 13 years. In addition, our insurance rep says he's paid $700 every time he gets someone to sign up for a Medicare Advantage plan (money taken from Medicare dollars).
3
I used to be a self-employed taxi-driver in NYC and did not have health insurance. In the early 1990's, I took a policy with Oxford Health Insurance costing me $500 a month. After 3-months I closed it - couldn't afford it.
I thought ACA was the solution to my problem - costing just 1/3 of what I paid to Oxford. Now the sticking point that upset Trump and the latter day Republicans is the "individual mandate" requiring all young able-bodied workers (not prone to get sick soon) to enroll in ACA under penalty of law. That's the definition of insurance - shared cost in a large pool of beneficiaries. And, it is there when you need it. Unless you want to build a latrine only when you need it.
Chief Justice Roberts is a wise Justice - he understood the core definition of insurance and the meaning of a law voted for by the majority in the Congress. He will also understand the meaning of Trump's Congress trying but failing to repeal ACA in the Congress - so Trump's people pitched this thing to Judge O'Connor - who has a history of making up the law.
One of the worse things in America is to get sick - and you have no insurance.
14
If this ruling holds, there are so many more laws that will be challenged. Instead of lawyers attacking the merits of a whole law, they will just search out small flaws and the right courts.
5
Wow! Allowing Americans to become bankrupt over health insurance is a mainstay of GOP policy.
Wow! Americans without healthcare insurance are likely to be sicker and die before their insured counterparts.
Wow! Those rural hospitals who were able to stem the closing because of ACA will be gone. Enjoy your two hour ride to the nearest hospital rural America.
Wow! Waiting for years for the Gop replacement. Where is it?
Here it is: Don't get sick. If you do, die quickly.
It'll be when hell freezes over that the Gop comes forward with a cheaper, better plan than the ACA. They've controlled ALL branches of federal government and nothing.
Wow! remedy: throw every Republican out of office from dog catcher, mayor, sheriff to president. ALL. I
Wow! VOTE
17
It is no surprise to citizens of North Texas that Reed O'Connor, whose wife is an in-house fixer-lawyer at Exxon, would abuse the judicial power George War Bush bestowed upon him to sacrifice the health and safety of the American people to his corporate idols before the altar of his corrupted federal court. See http://lawflog.com/?p=1559
7
I can't believe this ruling will stand. If it does, or comes close, I doubt there will be a single republican elected in 2020 anywhere in the US.
8
Thanks. The NY Times can do better by informing the public routinely of the names and party of nomination of all judicial decisions. Give readers an asterisk e.g. (R*) or (D*).
The politicization of the courts is literally killing us.
Please help the public make this predictably deadly act the last straw in tragic Republican policies.
See https://www.legalreader.com/elections-for-the-people/
6
@louis v. Lombardo
I don't think that's necessary. All we need to know is where the candidates stand on the rulings, as it's those candidates who are writing the laws.
Start by voting out all GOP, and we have a shot at healthcare (maybe).
5
@Martin
Thanks I agree that we need to vote out the GOP.
But informing voters requires systematic information on who rules in the public interest and who does not.
Keeping people in the dark perpetuates the myth that judges are apolitical and that all rulings are understood by all or most Americans.
Can anyone give us a list of all inhumane rulings over the past half century? See
https://www.legalreader.com/republican-racketeers-violent-policies/
1
Why does the Times never write "San Francisco judge strikes down ..."? Hmmm? Ever think that you are yourself partisan?
9
@Daphne
Being partisan doesn't mean going against a bill that lawmakers of the other party signed into law, it means doing so without having any serious legal argument to support your decision as judge, remember?
And that is exactly what is happening here.
6
@Daphne: The Times always mentions where major court decisions are made, which judges make them, and, if applicable, who appointed the judge. You must not read the Times often. Either that, or you don't read it very closely.
1
@Daphne
You do realize it's partisan politics that put Republicans and this president in control ALL THREE BRANCHES of government -- don't you?
1
Good. I hope the Supremes concur revealing for all the cruelty of the GOP. This will ensure the Dems win big in 2020 and we will have universal health care soon after. Our lives are on the line.
6
A fellow human being judges that something-a concept, a regulation, a contract, a law, a state of being-is “inseverable” from...That judgement, by a fellow-human, who functions as a Texan-federal judge, whatever his self-identity and range of helpful and harmful behaviors, is inherently “inseverably” influenced by his underpinned beliefs.Some of which can be ideological, of whatever nature and direction. This judgment, and whatever derived decisions will follow, raises an ongoing unresolved reality. Words are voiced, written, twittered and deeds are done and there is no personal accountability for planned, unplanned, expected, unexpected outcomes! Whatever their temporary or more permanent nature and consequences. Helpful. Harmful. An “inseverable” mixture. And all of this continues to be enabled by US, in our toxic WE-THEY culture which violates, daily, created, selected, targeted people, ideas, concepts, processes,values, norms, and even types, levels and qualities of health and wellbeing.For many. The toxic WE-THEY continues to be inseverable. As does willful blindness,deafness and ignorance. “Spiced” all-too-often by complacency and complicity.Empowered by unaccountability at all levels. What is necessary to sever politics from equitable wellbeing for ALL? Aside from elections what viable options are there to sever “ violators” from their temporary powers to violate before unnecessary pains, and even deaths occur?
1
Time for action by the medical profession. Don't accept anti-HCA politicians or their families as patients. Let them see what it's like to lack access to the health care they want and need. Any MD who is respected and in demand will be immune to backlash over such a protest. Nor will they be denying care if they simply replace arrogant, uncaring lawmakers and judges with regular folks who need the same kinds of care as the privileged few. We've reached a point in our history where it's necessary to inflict nonviolent consequences on powerful people who act as if ordinary people are expendable. Businesses and professionals can inflict unmistakable and appropriately humiliating consequences simply by refusing services. Just tell the newly non-grata customers that it's free enterprise in action.
4
@MB...no, this is illegal and would also violate a physician's oath. This one is on us voters.
If the Republicans want to start a widespread insurrection that results in universal healthcare, this is the right way to go about it.
12
@HH Untrue. Republicans have gotten spectacular political mileage out of their frontal assault on anything that benefits working people. They have their own state-run media to push their poisonous ideas and pour hundreds of millions into pushing the view that collective medical, economic and environmental suicide will benefit Americans.
The ACA is a band aid on a severed artery. The fundamental flaw in America's health care system is that it was established to facilitate corporate health, not citizen health. Until and unless we alter this paradigm, the best legislators and jurists on earth will not be able to fix what's wrong.
12
@TM
Sounds good -- But what use is an altered paradigm when you have legislators and jurists who won't enact it?
Start there.
Remember that while congress does not have the authority to mandate the purchase of health insurance, each of the 50 states do have that authority. You state also has the authority to regulate health insurance and to even set prices for medical services. Any state in the union can have universal coverage tomorrow if they want it bad enough to pay the price.
4
While it’s not true that congress can’t impose an Individual mandate, and it’s not true that states have a free hand, nevertheless be careful what you wish for.
California and Colorado both put universal healthcare on the ballot. It was defeated by the usual flood of money from vested interests. Harry and Louise, again. Vermont came close, too.
New York failed to pass universal healthcare last year by a single vote in the senate, which was controlled by Republicans only with the aid of a few renegade Democrats, all but one of whom was voted out. On the numbers, New York could well be the first.
States do not by themselves have the power to drive down drug prices, for one thing. A national system would be more efficient and fairer. But the move toward universal healthcare is growing. It will arrive sooner than most of us think possible, like a black president in our lifetimes.
5
@KBronson...always astonishing to see that literate commenters do not understand the principle of insurance. Any state offering universal health care would be flooded with very sick patients.
It seems that many of the learned among us here have confidence that ultimately Obamacare will stand when it reaches the SCOTUS.
Whether that's whistling past the graveyard, irrational optimism or true belief on your part, this represents a grave threat to the law.
All it would take to bring the whole law down would be for Roberts to flip, and it's all over.
He based his support last time by characterizing the mandate as a "tax", thus providing him with a plausible foundation for a "thumbs up" vote. The argument by the solicitor general, Don Verrilli, was crafted specifically to ensnare Roberts vote in precisely that fashion.
With the mandate now repealed, I'm baffled by how so many believe Roberts is just going to merrily go along with the other four liberals on the court to uphold this law, which is absolutely loathed on the right.
I'm not so sure he wouldn't love a second shot at this.
6
If Obamacare was already ruled valid by SCOTUS, how does it get re-litigated like this? Wasn't the whole fight last time also based on the mandate, and SCOTUS decided that the government had the right to levy it through existing Constitutional interstate tariff or taxation law? And I thought it required a 33-state Constitutional amendment to overturn law once SCOTUS made a decisive ruling.
Plus, if last year's tax cut effectively made the individual mandate unnecessary - then what is the judge even talking about? He's going to strike down the whole ruling over a mandate you are no longer legally required to pay?
If it's that easy to overturn such a major law, let's find an equivalently cranky Democratic judge to overturn Citizens United, and sever these snakes at the head.
7
Another case of shooting ones' self in the foot by Republican conservatives. One conservative commentator here claims that 60% of the population disliked the ACA when it was enacted. That may or may not be true but this is now and more than 60% of the population has come to like the ACA despite its faults. Whatever happened to Trump's promise that he would fix our broken health insurance system? That promise went the way of all his other promises and will hopefully be the demise of the Republican Party. I am pleased that the district court in Texas struck down the ACA on spurious grounds. This will help Democrats take back the White House, and possibly the Senate, in 2020. So, even if the newly constituted Supreme Court agrees, a new Congress may well come up with something that helps the American people rather than insurers, drug companies, and corporate health care providers.
5
This ruling and it's long path to SCOTUS is a political gift to Democrats leading up to the 2020 election.
9
This is what end-stage capitalism looks like. Other Western industrialized countries have functioning, affordable healthcare and insurance systems that leave no patient behind and don't force patients to choose between paying for medicine or paying their day-to-day bills. It's been said before, shown before, reported about before, but Americans have been brainwashed by corporate-sponsored misinformation into being terrified of socialism (although most don't seem to understand what that really means). I can't ever see the US have a not-for-profit insurance and health care system as planning and implementing such a system would never survive the unrelenting, well-funded corporate lobbying efforts. Sad.
11
There's a trivial legislative fix, should this ruling stand: reinstate the penalty; make it $1.
That of course points out the absurdity of this judge's ruling.
6
“Poverty is a form of violence, the worst kind” - Gandhi
Should we be surprised about this ruling from the only country that had to go to war to end slavery
This can of worms was made possible by Judge Roberts refusing to validate the ACA on the basis of the Commerce clause
Let me give a remedial primer on the Commerce clause to him & his fellow travelers: The Commerce clause clearly gives control of the nations economy to the federal government. Unfortunately economics was a new field when the constitution was written & not all the basic concepts were worked out yet
Econ is governed by the law of supply & demand, not just supply, not just demand. In order for the fed’l govnmt to realize its constitutional power to manage the economy it must manipulate supply & demand
By the 1930s the Supreme Court realized this which gave the Fed Govt broad powers to balance bargaining power creating middle class country. The GOP has resented this ever since.
In order to bring down cost & make health insurance universally affordable in a private supplied system demand has to be maximized. The only way to do that is to make it mandatory. This is the utility model in civics. In that model you can’t have people opting out
In St. Louis Anhueser-Busch is forced to buy water from the local utilit despite having its own water plant. The result is universal availlability of clean water out of the tap in one’s own home at almost no noticeable cost.
What wont the GOP do on behalf of the rich?
9
ACA was financially unsound with the absurd guarantee insurance companies could pocket a 20% profit and expansion of Medicaid that is essentially a welfare program that requires people remain paupers or limit their income for participation. I'm a small business owner and protected by Medicare now, protection from financial ruin and premature death or suffering that every American should have as a fundamental human right. It's time unwind health insurance from employment, combine everyone in a single public insurance pool as a fundamental human right untethered from wealth, privilege or employment.
16
@Keith -- your claim of "absurd guarantee insurance companies could pocket a 20% profit" is completely wrong. There is no such guarantee, and insurance company looses exceeded 1 B$ in the first two years
https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucejapsen/2016/02/07/insurer-obamacare-losses-reach-billions-of-dollars-after-two-years/#3a6f0a6764c2
Could you please be bothered to check facts before making claims?
1
I was freaked out when I heard the news late last night. My anxiety made it difficult to fall asleep. I wondered "Why are the Trumpsters doing this so late on a Friday night right before Christmas?"
I wish I felt as you do that the law is in no real danger, but what about the two new creepy Trump appointed Supreme Court judges? Will they destroy the lives of millions as well as entire medical/hospital systems?
How much more damage to the American people will this administration do while nobody else is looking?
12
@pkbormes: Actually this was started by the residue of George Bush (Jr) republicans in red states. They jinnned up anti-ACA sentiment among their faithful followers who were all demanding that the government keep their hands off of their Medicare. So red state governments sued where and when they could to undermine it anyway they could.
Meanwhile the sentiment began to swing the other way on the ACA. The gig economy means tens of millions, if not hundreds, must buy their own healthcare insurance if they are to have any at all AND the people that already had it through employers now realized they were protected from having the rug pulled out from them on the basis of pre-existing conditions.
By the 2018 election GOP operatives that had worked against the ACA were all lying and saying they were fighting to protect availability of healthcare insurance and maintain coverage of pre-existing conditions.
Most blatantly - the GOP senate candidates for Senate in Missouri and Arizona both blatantly lied about their position on the issue. Hawley, the candidate from Missouri, who won, has his name on this law suite as the current Atty Gen’l of Missouri. (Missouri voted for increasing the minimum wage to $15 by 2022, Medical Marijuana, and against Right to Work - all progressive measures, and then turned around and elected Hawley).
I suspect that there is coming a point when the entire electorate realizes how flawed the GOP is, whether it’s on health insurance, treason & so on.
3
@pkbormes
You had good reason to be "freaked out". I'm with you.
Don't worry about the "two new creepy" Trumpsters, they just replaced others who originally voted against the law.
John Roberts is the only one that matters now, he has the power to uphold the law or take it away, while stripping away pre-existing condition protections for millions of people.
1
Whether or not this is a "partisan" ruling, the irony of this point is that Democrats and the NYT editorial board have been rejoicing over forum-shopped partisan rulings since Donald Trump became president. As Trump points out, virtually all the nation-wide injunctions against administration policies have come from the West Coast Ninth Circuit, off to which progressive lawyers trundle whenever they want a favorable ruling.
So it's more than hypocritical to bemoan the use of the same tactic by the right. The real tragedy in the whole affair is the fact that the federal bench now seems hopelessly compromised by political ideology. Some might say corrupted.
8
Please explain: since the Affordable Care Act pre-existed the Republican tax scam and since the Supreme Court already ruled it was constitutional, doesn’t that mean that the provision in the Republican tax scam is unconstitutional, not Obamacare? Still not understanding how legislation, duly passed by both houses of Congress and signed by President, and upheld by Supreme Court can constantly be under attack. In fact, Trump’s sabotage of the law – instructing his agencies not to prosecute those who violate individual mandate – is a violation of his oath of office to “uphold the Constitution and laws”, let alone stand up for the protection of Americans and national security.
What is little known, however, is the latest Administration attempt to blow up Obamacare from within: Trump intends to issue new rules to repeal ACA regulations meant to insure quality and standards of health care, which may be used to limit the ability of states like New York (which is contemplating universal health care, the New York Health Act) to require insurance companies and health providers to provide a standard of care. Under the pretense of "innovation" and "choice" the policy would open a Wild West of “competition” where “caveat emptor” comes into play after the patient has already died.
7
After reading Judge O'Connor's decision and re-reading the Supreme Court's decision, it is clear that the constitutional analysis by Judge O'Connor is laughable. Not surprising given his credentials and his prior rulings. To reach his decision, Judge O'Connor had to separate the "individual mandate" (the requirement to get health insurance) from the "shared responsibility payment" (the requirement to pay a tax if you don't comply with the individual mandate). He labors at length to separate the two, and here is how he starts that sad analysis: "It is critical to clarify something at the outset: the shared-responsibility payment, 26 U.S.C.
§ 5000A(b), is distinct from the Individual Mandate, id. § 5000A(a). For one thing, the latter is in
subsection (a) while the former is in subsection (b)." Impressive, right? A full analysis eviscerating the flawed ruling doesn't work in this forum. But here is a quick summary of the joke: In 2010, the Republican's argued that the mandate was unconstitutional BECAUSE OF THE TAX imposed on those who failed to comply. The Sup Ct. disagreed. In 2018, down in Republican dominated Ft. Worth, the Republican's argued, and soft headed (in terms of legal analysis - ignore the partisanship) Judge O'Connor agreed, with the argument that the mandate is unconstitutional BECAUSE THERE IS NO TAX PENALTY. Amazing - ordinary people can easily see how absurd that proposition is, but not Judge O'Connor. Its not bias - its stupid.
9
Nothing like shopping for a yahoo Judge in the Wild-West Texas court system; impudence and ignorance wearing a black robe.
The whole contorted ruling is akin to saying that one's "zero-interest-loan" vehicle is really a gift or a tax-free-holiday means you get your Amazon purchase free.
You know its a bad decision when the conservative organization funding previous attacks on Obamacare tweets out;
"Not a fan of ACA or King v Burwell decision, and usually a fan of Texas, but this is an embarrassingly bad decision..."(Ted Frank, Director of Litigation-Competitive Enterprise Institute).
Of course, written in crayola is Judge [sic] O'Connor's conclusion that the unconstitutionality of ACA extends to employers who- under the ruling are no longer required to offer health insurance benefits. Imagine a Monday-Morning-Letter from Microsoft, Google, Exxon H.R.
In lassoing Obamacare, O'Connor did so with a piece of yarn; No injunction- demonstrating this was just an ego-trip, knowing for the time being nothing will happen.
If ever there was a time for universal health insurance; this is it.
It would be Karma though- if His employer terminated his plan citing the decision.
4
As I understand it, the individual mandate has not been eliminated from the law. The penalty for non-enrollment has simply been set to zero as a result of the "tax bill." Please correct me, fellow readers, if I am wrong. But if the individual mandate still stands, even without a penalty for non-enrollment, it seems this ruling is utterly flawed. It is based on a false premise. This rent-a-judge is simply doing the knee-jerk dirty work of Texas and other Red-State politicians. I suspect he knows that this is a flawed decision, but the point is not to kill the law. They point is to get this dispute into the SCOTUS where Gorsuch and Kavanaugh can gut it. No concern for the millions that need health care. No concern for Medicaid expansion. No concern for the health of the nation. Only raw partisan politics.
7
The constitution was apparently written in stone on a mountain, or on buried gold tablets, depending on your religion. Any progressive/regressive new policy can be twisted to be 'unconstitutional' or 'constitutional' depending on the flavor of the judge of the day.
3
The Affordable Care Act has many, many flaws, though I think the many concepts it forces are well intended. The mandate to buy insurance is critical but how to get there was not sufficiently creative. Far better would create an all-covered solution that spreads the taxation for the purpose out within existing markets. ObamaCare, in fact, created bizarre cost shifting. At a surgery center, BCBS, for example, agreed to pay non-discounted prices on fully insured patients if ObamaCare patients were also cared. That created an excess expense experience in the fully-insured groups whose employers then had their insurance premiums raised to cover the costs. Better would be to create a health insurance tax that could be abated in a progressive fashion: if you’re exceptionally low income, you get more money back than you pay for insurance up to the cost of a sufficient but basic plan. And, the above should be doable through an employer. The lawn service companies need to be incentivized to make insurance available to their workers even if they are undocumented immigrants. At some income level, the extra cash on way back would stop. At medium incomes, a tax would be paid for costs above the same “sufficient plan” if a step-up plan were chosen. A tax like Medicare should exist on all incomes in a progressive fashion, none on very low income levels. Employers should be incentivized to pay the copays in a progressive fashion. Cost shifting can accommodate ability to pay. DO IT!!
1
The authors of the bill argued that the bill absolutely required an insurance mandate to work. The Supreme Court recognized that congress had no authority to mandate insurance purchase but agreed to deem what the bill said was a penalty for failure to comply with a mandate was really just a tax, while the authors were telling the public it was not a tax.
A latter congress lowered the tax to zero. A zero tax is not a tax so the Roberts Relabel doesn’t work. But the bill still civets is the language mandating insurance.
This mess making such a hash of language, law and logic all began because the Democratic Congress did not respect the plain language of the constitution specifying and limiting its authority. It started with Nancy getting the gavel the first time. Now she has it back. Maybe she will ask Congress to pass something new so we can see what is in it.
Can someone explain why, if the ACA is unconstitutional without the mandate, wouldn't the tax reform act be unconstitutional also?
It seems to me, this ruling can be used to declare the tax reform legislation unconstitutional since it is contrary to existing law.
2
The problem with Obamacare was not so much the individual mandate, its imposition of a tax penalty upon those who had not purchased health insurance, but demanding that all insurance policies provide a laundry list of coverages, many of which most Americans did not need, nor would ever use.
If this case makes it to the SC and the SC upholds the decision, then many people in this nation will be affected, some adversely. That is not good.
I do not believe that Medicare for All is the solution, mainly because I oppose it as a matter of principle since its proponents are from the Radical Left; Senator Sanders is OK, but Representative Cortez is too far out there to be taken seriously, which apparently nobody in Congress does anyway. Cheers!
1
@Southern Boy Do you consider every other democracy in the world that provides affordable universal health care as being controlled by the "radical left?"
3
The Act has its roots in conservative Republican Mitt Romney’s administration as governor of Massachusetts. To be against something simply because your perceived enemies are for it is an abdication of intellectual honesty and the height of primitive tribalism. Are you fundamentally against people receiving healthcare that they can afford?
7
@Southern Boy
There is no radical left of noteworthy count in this country.
If you accept Sanders policies, then we are ok.
1
Back in 1968, just as I was beginning University the battle for universal health coverage was raging.
It all started in Saskatchewan and it was not pretty. Tommy Douglas is a hero.
Fast forward to 2018 and I and my family would be living in poverty if it was not for the brave, humanistic, and forward thinking people of the hero’s of Saskatchewan. Without sounding too melodramatic I likely would be dead without our universal coverage.
I believe now that the federal government provides half the funding for coverage while the provinces make up the rest. Some call it taxation, others call it a well purchased lifeline. We all pay and although there are problems it is a system that will continue to improve. If we have to pay more we will. Better than dead.
Some history for anyone interested.
https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/the-birth-of-medicare
11
As described in the media, the decision doesn't make much sense. For a constitutional violation there has to be a substantial harm. If there is no longer any penalty for not having health insurance, individuals are not individually harmed by the mandate, and it is simply part of the framework of a comprehensive insurance system rather than a compulsion vs. individuals. If this suit claims that state governments are harmed because if the mandate is no longer a tax, then the ACA is not a exercise of the federal tax power, the federal government still has authority to develop national health insurance standards for existing health insurance. States are not harmed by the remaining ACA provisions because the 2012 Supreme Court decision already ruled as a matter of state rights that state participation in the ACA Medicare expansion and the state exchanges was voluntary.
"Justice Roberts said when he cast the decisive vote that upheld Obamacare, “It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.” "
Another way to put it is "You can not fix stupid" especially when it is part of a con on the stupid.
America , are you any better than the Trump-Kushner crime family ? Why are there ANY GOP supporters ? Why are there so many of "the people that can be fooled ALL of the time".
In hindsight Obama`s 1st task should have been to make lobbies illegal as they are in all other democracies. Then fixing the political system including having a universal, single payer , affordable healthcare system would be a snap.
2
Obama had a once in a lifetime majority which could have been used to save the USA from the oligarchs. That he did not is food for thought. However, the disaster of money controlling elections was actually enshrined in the 2010 citizens United decision. By then, Democratic power and any obama mandate was waning, waiting to be swept away by history that November.
From what I've read elsewhere the basis of the decision is the Obama government's insistence that Obamacare is indivisible, and SCOTUS' acceptance of the tax component as the basis for ruling the entire thing Constitutional. With no tax component there's now no basis for ruling it Constitutional. For liberals to now try to claim the law is divisible, despite previously arguing before SCOTUS the opposite, raises serious doubts about their logic and integrity.
15
@Andrew Mason But there is a tax component, if you do not buy health insurance you are subject to a tax penalty ... of $0 dollars. But why is the dollar amount relevant? Just changing the price of the penalty does not change the law.
47
@Jonathan, Under USSC precedent, a tax has to raise revenue. It's not a tax if it doesn't raise revenue. And the Interstate Commerce Clause cannot compel activity, only regulate it. So....Ta Da! No ACA.
3
@Andrew Mason No, the court did NOT rule that the mandate was necessary to and inseverable from the ACA, it merely ruled that the mandate, as a tax penalty, was constitutional. Many people have posited that the mandate was necessary for the Marketplace to survive, that's a very different issue and separate from the Medicaid expansion and to a certain degree from the consumer protections in the bill.
20
Of course this rogue ruling wont stand, even Trump seems to know that. But in my mind the bigger stor is Roberts. Roberts has shown himself to be a man of highly disciplined principle working for the people with an honest and credible perspective. He may be considered a 'conservative' but in my mind, regardless of 'party', he is the honest broker the Constitution requires.
2
Many Republicans ran on defending the ACA and protecting the pre-existing condition portion. GOP Hypocrites!
The Preamble to the Constitution states To 'promote the general welfare' means to do what is best for the citizens of the country, for the government to protect and ensure the welfare of its citizens.
Are your GOP "hacks" meeting their obligation to uphold the Constitution??? No. Explain to me how taking away healthcare from 12 million Americans is promoting the general welfare of our citizenry. Why anyone with a heart bigger than a pea, and greater than an angstrom measure of compassion would vote republican, is beyond comprehension to any thinking person.
1
Several points
1-how is it the POTUS complains about other courts decisions as "shop arounds" when they rule against his policies but when they are in his favor they are WOW. what hypocrisy
2- the legal logic in this decision is tortuous at best
3- having been on the provider side for 40 years ive seen the good that the ACA has done for the industry and for individuals. Are there individual problems sure but it sure beats the "free market" approach which basically turns the keys over to the insurance industry (by the way the only group that makes money any way the law works - think about it). I wonder how many detractors would change their tune if they were faced with a major or minor health crisis - heart attack, cancer auto accident- and they had no or limited insurance coverage. I can assure you having listened to patients for years they would all scream like a stuck pig.
most reasonable people can support common sense changes - throwing the baby out with the bathwater serves no purpose except increasing expenses
1
Don't blame the judge, or his decision, it was the actions of the Trump/Republican party that destroyed ACA through this backdoor.
The decision makes absolute sense. ACA is an integrated plan or funding and services, you can't remove the first without vitiating the second. Republicans who retained the Senate and what seats they have in the house, uttered the illiterate and illogical promise, "We are for pre-existing conditions, absolutely"
The electorate, unfortunately without the ability to parse the details or the syntax believed this. Their hatred of the left, and embrace of the right, dictated that even if they don't understand all the details, what is done in Washington under Trump is a good thing, the American thing, including their promise to protect "preexisting condition"
Praise of universal suffrage is a bedrock of liberal democracy, and a de-facto policy of the Democratic party. Yet, when a critical mass do not understand elementary civics, able to comprehend complex issues, we are open to large blocks of voters electing a person and a party who will capitalize on this.
It could be when even this benighted citizenry realizes the loss of security of survival for their families, the blinders will be lifted, and they will see what their dedication to Trump/Republicanism has wrought
I heard this news last evening, just before going to bed.
This morning, as anticipated, came the self-serving, gloating tweet by (y)our president.
What kind of inhuman, amoral monster celebrates the possible harm that this repeal will cause millions of Americans?
NOT my president
4
this decision is exhibit no. 1 why the dems in 2020 if they have the opportunity should increase the number of supreme court justices to 12.
exhibit no. 2 is the number of right wing activists trump has appointed to the lower courts.
the new york times and other members of our intelligentsia are afraid of "court packing", thinking that doing so would continue the "disharmony" among the two parties--but they are ignoring reality.
"reality" is that republicans at the federal and state levels have been stacking the judiciary for many years, and the democrats have not "fought back." as a result, we have a highly skewed judiciary--ask anyone who lives in a "red" state what they think of their state's judiciary (just another political branch).
I can look forward confidently to the labeling of a 9th Circuit ruling in favor of a liberal group or government as a "Partisan Ruling" in the headline, and denounced as "a predictable exercise in motivated reasoning" in the text now, I guess! Oh, what's that, you say? The Opinion Page editors would never say that about a ruling they agree with? Oh! Well that makes this article just a little bit less than honest for not mentioning that both the Left, and the Right go judge shopping doesn't it?
3
Elected Republicans seem to only care about themselves. They care about their money, not yours or mine. They care about their own health care, not yours or mine. They love their perks and don't care if you or I can afford to eat. Republicans should not be in charge of anything that involves the People or the People's welfare because they will sell the People out every single time for a profit.
1
Tax cuts for the rich and corporations, and for the middle class - repeal the ACA, so that millions of people will lose health insurance and protections for those with pre-existing conditions. The GOP must be defeated at state, local and federal levels. It is incapable of governing, and is the puppet of corporations, and right wing extremists. Not only does the GOP not know how to govern to help the middle class and the poor, it does not even want to. It is time for the middle class to fight back!
1
I guess that means all auto insurance is unconstitutional. Where do they find these right wing judges? Oh, Texas!
1
Amazing that the “pro-life” Party would be so enthusiastic about taking away healthcare, something that saves lives.
But I’m sure Republican Evangelicals can find a Bible verse to justify this cruelty. Same way they can find a Bible verse to justify putting children in cages. In fact, I’m sure that this weekend at every racist megachurch across the Confederacy, greedy Evangelicals will be praising their Lord and Savior- Donald Trump.
2
Yet when The United States, or her allies, are sick, because of attacks from foreign pathogens, her poor citizens, the ones whose healthcare was just stripped away, take up arms to defend them.
Except for the rich.
The rich, like the kochs, the romneys, the mercers, the waltons and of course the gutless trumps are too cowardly and un-American to fight for their country.
They're just here for the tax cuts.
2
The most galling aspect of the continued arch-conservative battle against health care is that ALL of these people have cushy government-provided, taxpayer-subsidized, high end health coverage.
Anyone against Obamacare should refuse subsidized health care of any kind (including Congressional retirement benefits) and throw themselves into the vagaries of the private markets.
No shame, but hypocrisy to spare.
3
How anyone could still identify as Republican just baffles me.
1
“The reason the judge, Reed O’Connor, gets these cases isn’t a mystery: Texas and its allied states know the game and shop these lawsuits right into Judge O’Connor’s courtroom.”
Let’s remember that Texas is the state that gave us Tom DeLay, money laundering, conspiracy: two themes that stand out regarding the morality of the GOP.
1
It is inescapable that Republican philosophy is Live Rich or Die. New Hampshire almost had it right.
While it is the “or Die” part that bothers some people, when you think of it it becomes clear that Republicans have seen the future where their factories and services are robotized leaving 95% or so of the people on earth as superfluous and fated to die a slow and lingering death of squalid poverty. Thus, they see themselves as having to humanely manage the transition period from a lot us to just a few of them. The particular brilliance of the Republicans is getting the support of people who will never be rich to support the efforts to kill us all off. The real "deep state".
Even most Republicans realize that previous methods have been unpopular so more subtle means are required to depopulate the earth to avoid having nations turn on you as they did on Hitler. By slowly taking all the income, removing safe guards in elder years, allowing poisons to enter the air and water, eliminating safety rules and eliminating livable space, and now, removing healthcare, they are able to enact means to hasten the death of the proletariat. With the added benefit preventing the upraising of the poor as seen in the past.
The only problem is that their plans could backfire on them when the air is no longer fit to breath and the land can no longer produce food or provide a habitable place to build golf courses.
Live Rich or Die
1
How stupid can you get and still be a judge? Apparently as stupid as the current occupant of the White House who thinks this is a great ruling. If the ACA's mandate was unconstitutional, then government mandates requiring drivers to have a driver's license and carry auto insurance are also unconstitutional, as are the mandates requiring us to have Social Security cards and pay income and property taxes. State, local and federal governments mandate all sorts of things all the time including a law that forbids hospitals to deny emergency medical care to people who have no medical insurance. If that mandate is constitutional, why shouldn't the ACA's mandate be constitutional?
2
The fact that one Federal Judge can affect the lives of tens of millions is ridiculous.
We have to review our constitution. We have to stop priding ourselves of that piece of arcana. This is peoples lives and happiness. Cut the rhetoric and let’s get back to work.
330 Million live in this country. A few jerks run it and our lives.
Print this! It is fit to print.
1
Just try to repeal OBAMACARE I dare you.
Is it yellow vest time?
2
While journalists start to whip up mass hysteria....again...lets please step back, take a deep breath, and do some independent objective thinking...each of us on our own.
Here's my own analysis and experience. ObamaCare has changed nothing. It did not address actual health care costs. ObamaCare has been very effective at the shell game of INSURANCE costs......each month I recieve a frighteningly large cost accounting of medical expenses(larger than ever before)...and the bottom line reassures me that I owe "$o.oo" due to changes in INSURANCE costs...all while the actual costs of Medicine and health care skyrocket.
Its a Trick. The DNC Political Machine has effectively "bought your vote" by ramrodding thru a poorly thought out process of creating a Monopoly that no longer charges YOU for the cost ... but instead charges the Federal Govt....because the Federal Govt can just magicly borrow funds to pay for it all.
Of course the borrowing power is backed by Tax Revenues......generated by ObamaCare's TAX provisions.....written unconstitutionally by the US Senate.
(Ralph Nader.....circa 2005.......:They all laugh at you")
1
The wealthy did and can pay for their own insurance.
The ACA was a giant transfer of health care from the working class to the poor.
All the confusing language in the law is mumbo jumbo to rationalize this transfer of healthcare.
The Democrat voters are always restless and the Democrats have to keep feeding them with new benefits.
Obamaphones. Healthcare.
Who knows what they will dream up next.
1
@True Observer
Science. Mumbo jumbo. Etc. Sounds like you got it figured out. I didn't realize that national health care policy was so simple, and that it's the Democrats who complicate it to keep poor voters in the ranks! You know the Dems are meeting in back rooms devising new schemes. Quite an insightful and informed analysis!
@True Observer - It's the red states with the highest percentage of their populations on safety net programs, and it's the red states that rely every year on subsidies paid for by blue state taxes. It's the blue states that are the engine of our economy.
1
It's sick that Republicans are so gleeful when millions of sick Americans will not have access to healthcare.
1
@BKNY - Republicans are cheering the idea of locking children in cages and blaming their desperate families, fleeing the real threat of death in their own countries, for bringing their children on a dangerous journey that has, so far, killed a 7 year old child. Why would we expect anything different from them when it comes to depriving millions of health care?
Another confirmation of my view that we are the most evil nation in human history if one factors in duration. The Nazis 20 years, the Soviet Union 70. We started exterminating the Indigenous folk in the 1600s when we introduced slavery. Racism continues and we are killing and displacing millions in the Middle East. We must be stopped.
We are now harming our middle class and others by taking away medical care. And the people accept it. It will benefit humankind if we would disappear. Did I mention climate change? We threaten the very survival of the human species.
My commentary is " over the top " and likely will not be printed, but it is true.
The only rebuttal which carries weight is that some would say we could improve.
I doubt it. Corporations rule. In this case the medical industrial complex energized by rapacious greed is a danger to our health and welfare.
Now if only Lincoln had let the South secede... glory be the day!
@Tullymd
You won't find any support regarding " the most evil country". Look at Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Sudan ( genocide) the Congo and other assorted African countries that were despoiled by colonialism thus putting much of Europe in the running for the " gold medal of evil". Consider the countless millions killed and lives destroyed by the two world wars, and before that the religious wars including the 30 years war, the Inquisition, the crusades, the Catholic Church continuing in their reign of terror today with pedophilia and the institutional coverup.
The sins of the US are significant but pale in comparison.
Not to be racist but if you must categorize evil it's not a country phenomenon its a white man's issue. And I say man not woman.
There's orange slime all over his judgement.
Wishful thinking by the leftist NYTs.
It will be upheld by the 5th Circuit, then by the new conservative majority in the SC.
3
I'm fortunate to be old enough to have Medicare. I worry for my those of my friends and family members who will go without healthcare should this stand. Lives are at stake.
1
Although I have great health insurance, I feel very strongly that everyone should have healthcare. It is my number one priority for our country and I donated generously in support of the ACA. It only makes sense that if we live in times with amazing cell phones, computers, space exploration, robots, driverless cars and DNA science - well, then, medical care for individuals should be a basic right.
1
In 2016 the republicans ran on removing and replacing "Obama Care". It then became known that they had no plan in place to replace it. As the president pointed out this is a very complicated issue, which only became apparent to him at that time. Obviously there is still no other republican plan at all... which if it were not so serious, would be hilarious.
3
Actually, the judge's decision makes sense if you remember the Preamble, which reads
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do hereby cede all our rights and wealth to the Rich and Powerful, so that they may trickle down on us the Golden Rains of their Non-Offshore Spending."
When you think of it that way, it is Right (far Right) that the "People's House" and Senate should have no effective voice in health care under Article I.
2
I’m not sure the writer actually gets the law. The individual mandate actually is the ACA’s linchpin. (Whether it’s legally severable is another question). But when you pull this linchpin you condemn the entire ACA to a certain death spiral. Not complicated. More people don’t sign up and pay until they’re sick. Then they do. Premiums rise as a result. Fewer well people sign up as a result. Less and less revenue. Restore the individual mandate or make it Medicare for all.
5
Simple solution: the Democrats should pass a law that stipulates that "no Federal Government employee, including elected members of the House, Senate, Oval Office, shall receive publicly-funded health insurance that is unavailable to every other American citizen."
17
@Norman
Good idea! -- Especially since it's American citizens whose taxes are paying for their health insurance.
3
When a court supports progressive policies that aren't constitutional, the media applauds and degrades any group that opposed the measure. When a court is constitutional and observes that there is NO provision by which the federal government can require individuals to purchase private services simply because the person exists, then its a "partisan ruling".
There are better ways to implement fairer health care policies, namely provide for the truly disabled (already happens via Medicare) and provide for catastrophic illness or injury not self-inflicted (Don't wear a helmet? Didn't buckle up? You don't qualify). Thinking it's okay for the feds to force people to purchase health insurance is as sensible as forcing people to purchase home insurance to prevent homelessness or full-coverage auto insurance to prevent job loss. It's just wrong.
3
It’s not wrong at all, not in the least.
We have a choice: treat the sick whether or not insured, or not.
We don’t refuse life-saving treatment for inability to pay, but we do require payment regardless, and hence are the only country with such a thing as “medical bankruptcy”. We do “refuse” necessary but unaffordable treatment by virtue of the patients themselves choosing not to see a doctor or not to fill their prescriptions.
Your “didn’t wear a helmet” argument is ridiculous. Unrealistic because inhumane: you don’t live in a world where denying care to the heedless is acceptable, and wouldn’t want to if that patient were your son.
Once you acknowledge that everyone will be treated, deserving or not, that denying treatment is inhumane, you must inexorably conclude that requiring insurance is only reasonable. You’ll be treated if alive; therefore you’ll pay insurance while alive. Death and taxes, amigo.
By the way, you pay taxes involuntarily to fund innumerable acts in your name that you don’t support. They might be exactly the ones I do support, and vice versa, but let’s not suppose being required to pay for stuff is un-American or even novel.
There is good news: universal healthcare is cheaper. Monopsony drives down prices. True in theory, true in fact. Just look at the experience of every other industrialized country. There’s $1 trillion in annual wasted medical expenditure on the table. Look into it.
One party keeps the flow of the poor and uneducated coming across the border, and the other takes healthcare away. This will not end well.
1
The flow of poor and uneducated continues from within the US, not so much from immigration, but due to the failings in our own education system. Evidence is everywhere but mostly in rural America. Just look to the east side of your own state.
Actually, no. Democrats don’t bring the poor and uneducated into the country. Immigration is a matter of law. Which Democrat doesn’t want the law enforced?
Republicans have not proposed changing the law. They’ve controlled congress for 8 years, and changed immigration not one bit. Same number, same rules. 300% increase in border protection, as if the twin towers were attacked by Guatemalans. No attempt to legalize those here, regardless of the consequences. No law to punish companies that hire people here illegally. Insufficient funds to deport 12 million people.
You’d kinda hafta think maybe they like immigration as an issue. Not to solve, just to campaign on. Because, we’ll, they keep campaigning on it instead of solving it.
For example, the Wall? 90% of the people here illegally arrived at an airport. Maybe we should build a wall around JFK.
Problem is, of course, that the cure is worse than the disease. The policies and taxes necessary to stop illegal immigration and prevent illegal employment would be unpopular, even with Republicans.
On immigration, as on healthcare, Democrats are proposing real solutions to actual problems in lives lived. Republicans advocate nonsolutions to imagined problems that comfort the comfortable and afflict the afflicted.
It won’t end well. Either Republicans will go gentle into that good night, or else. A fed up electorate turned to a charlatan for solutions. Where else can they turn after he, too, fails to heed their call?
2
@M
Did you somehow forget this president "loves the poorly educated" on this side of the border who voted him into office?
Right. And all those judicial decisions preventing President Trump from keeping illegal aliens outside our country, those are all pure as the driven snow and are in no way partisan.
It's interesting how decisions are "fair" and "based in law" so long as you agree with them. But if they favor the side you dislike, that's a different kettle of fish.
I don't really have an opinion about The Affordable Care Act one way or the other, except that I was horrified that its key provision forced me to purchase something I might not want. I found that terrifying when the Act was introduced, and I find it terrifying now. What a terrible precedent! What else might the government now be empowered to force me to buy? (I know, I know, auto insurance. I don't agree with that proviso either.)
7
@Kathleen880
Please don’t get sick, and stay off the roads.
36
Kathleen,
If something were to happen to you, lets say you got
hit by a car while walking on the side walk ( like I did 8 years ago )
Who will pay for your treatment and recovery?
Do you have insurance? Or Medicare?
If the answer is no, then we the taxpayers are paying your bill.
My emergency room bill alone, was over 35 thousand dollars.
My recovery was twice that.
My BCBS premiums were about $450 a month pre accident.
By the time my recovery was complete, about 18 months later,
with...no ongoing medical care......my premiums rose to
$1900.00 per month. That was before the ACA.
And .....wait for it.....I now had several pre existing conditions.
And, for those who will wonder.....Yes. Yes I did sue the person
who hit me.
For 2 lost years of my life....I couldn’t work for over 18 months, I received
about 150,00.00. (from the auto insurance of the person who hit me)
After the lawyer took his commission 25% and BCBS took their “subrogation”,
I “limped” away with less than half of my “settlement”
and injuries that will impact me for the rest of my life.
So, if I understand you correctly:
You don’t want to pay for health insurance.
You don’t want to pay for auto insurance.
If something happens to you, or you injure someone else by
accident, who pays? Do you care?
One of the reasons health care and health insurance premiums
are so expensive is that the few of us who are paying
end up paying collectively for all of you who don’t.
225
@JTH - it's not the payment, it's the coercion. I do pay for both health and auto insurance.
1
Republican politicians lied during the last campaign saying they were in favor of pre-existing conditions being protected but not only supported this lawsuit but were named as plaintiffs. How many were duped to voting for them because they believed the lies? It's time to start calling out the lies of politicians.
2
This, along with upcoming decisions rubber-stamping voter suppression and gerrymandering, are the fruits of the Dems sleepwalk through every election cycle since Barack Obama's victory in 2008. The bench right up to the Supreme Court is full of right wing fanatics. The only good news is that there will be no shortage of issues to run on if the Democratic candidates have sense enough to use them.
3
@Bruce Rubenstein - It's tiem to stop blaming the Democrats for a political system based on rule by the minority. Twice in 16 years a Democrat has won the presidency yet the outdated EC has handed the win to the Republican. In 2016, Senate Democrats got 20 million more votes than Republicans yet Republicans kept the majority, thanks to the founders' unwise compromise that allows only 2 senators per state, regardless of population. If CA had the same proportion of senate representation as WY, for example, CA would have more than 100 senators.
And then there's gerrymandering. In 2016, House Democrats got 3 million more votes than House Republicans yet Republicans kept a 23 seat majority. It takes about 8% MORE votes for Democrats to break even because of these anti-democratic laws/procedures. Yes, Democrats need to turn out in still greater numbers, but Democrats are not responsible for a horribly lopsided political system.
We need a referendum to make all memebers of congress have health care on the open market. Then would would see some progress.
4
@CTMD - The ACA passed a Chuck Grassley amendment that required members of Congress and their staffs to drop their FEHBP insurance and sign up for the ACA through a state exchange. But they know if they repeal the ACA they can go back on the FEHBP exchange. They won't lose their insurance like so many other Americans will.
At bottom, this is another tax break for the rich. I suspect that's been behind the "repeal" movement all along - the 3.8% tax on investment income above a few hundred thousand dollars. Guess who benefits from this cowardly "repeal"? It isn't the average working stiff.
2
The 3.8% net investment income tax was NOT repealed. So this actually has nothing to do with giving the evil rich people a tax break.
2
I am not familiar with Judge O'Connor, but am with the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, who filed this suit with other AGs in other states, 17 or so, I believe. Paxton is under indictment for securities fraud and was when the voters of this great state chose him over another more suitable candidate. He and the governor believe this choice to file this lawsuit a good one. Stinky? Yes. When lawyers and judges argue over constitutionality, the matter of the law becomes most interesting with departed Justice Scalia and sitting Justice Thomas now joined perhaps by Justic Alito arguing on the sacred original document. Said sacred documment written when the nation was conceived and born had to be amendment-worthy, which it has proven to be, or how would we have managed to allow women to vote, African-Americans and others to do the same and be considered citizens, as well as the many innumerable considerations of retaining the constitution while allowing for realistic considerations of change as we, the country and its citizens, move through the generations. I believe this ruling will not stand.
This article reminds me of the Soviet propaganda I read back in the 60's and 70's....As for the lady on the left asking 'Why are you killing me?", well who knows what kind of care she needs; there are involuntary commitment evaluations and procedures
1
Reminds you how? Who’s being committed involuntarily to what?
Maybe you’re thinking of another article?
As usual, this partisan ruling is to make up for the big tax break that was given to the wealthy. The GOP is no longer hiding that they want to live another gilded age, and toss those that weren’t born with silver spoons to the trash heap.
2
I agree this was clearly a case of jurisdiction shopping by conservatives and I applaud the NYT for pointing this out. However, the inability to call out jurisdiction shopping when liberals do it (e.g. to attack Trump's various executive orders on immigration) in these same pages is very disappointing. Shame on you for your selective outrage, NYT.
5
Dems get a public option in exchange for a wall. Done.
1
Americans get Medicare for All and don’t waste billions on a pointless wall to prop up Trump’s ego. Better.
1
The day for a public option is over.
Republicans have made plain their disdain for any form of publicly guaranteed healthcare. Since dialogue — let alone compromise — is impossible, Democrats might as well do what’s right instead what seemed reasonable in 2009.
Medicare for All is both right and reasonable. If Trump wants a wall, let him build it around mar-a-lago.
@M
What part of this ruling being unconstitutional did you fail to understand?
This editorial consists of ad hominem attacks against a judge's motives and assertions that his decision was flawed, with minimal supporting reasoning. Do you disagree that now that the tax penalty has been set to zero, the individual mandate no longer falls under the federal government's taxing power? Why? You treat it as absurd that the individual mandate is inseparable from the rest of the bill, but why do you think it is separable? When the ACA was first passed, didn't its proponents argue that the individual mandate was a vital component? I expect less mud-slinging and more critical analysis from the editorial board of the New York Times.
6
The answer is simple: the individual mandate is separable because congress separated it.
It’s not for a judge to second-guess congress. It’s not even for the Supreme Court to second-guess congress; their only recourse is to the constitution, and separability is not a constitutional question.
Really, what of the tax penalty? It was never very much, hardly 10% of the cost of insurance, let alone treatment. If congress had lowered the penalty to $1 instead of $0, would the constitutionality of the individual mandate have remained unquestioned? If $1 isn’t enough to stipulate congress’s power to tax, what is? And if it is, how is it different, in reality, from no penalty at all?
Outrageous Republican callousness at work again. The ACA is literally a matter of life or death for our family. I've been self-employed for twenty years, & except for the ten years spent abroad in Germany, finding affordable health insurance has been a nightmare. The ACA went into effect the same month I was diagnosed with cancer. Without it, I would have died & bankrupted my family simultaneously. Yes, the ACA has serious flaws, the biggest one being the lack of subsidies for families making over $25,000 a year. Since Trump arrived, deductibles & out-of-pocket expenses have skyrocketed. I survived my cancer, but still need regular tests, yet with deductibles now so high, I can't afford those tests any more. My little family has to spend $4500 before insurance starts to pay anything. One hospitalization takes care of that, but in the years since my cancer, we haven't met the deductible, so everything that isn't deemed "preventive" care by the insurance company (they don't designate follow-up cancer screenings as "preventive," but "diagnostic," & therefore refuse to pay for them) comes out of my pocket. That means paying for medical bills on credit cards, which has brought the crushing misery of constant, grinding debt that will never go away. Yes, the ACA needs repair. But more than anything, we need to get the for-profit mentality out of our healthcare, & as long as greedhead Republicans are in charge, that won't happen. Vote them ALL out, including senators!
7
I hope jerry smith and edith jones are not on the 5th circuit panel.
Medical coverage is so out of wack. My doctor, who I have been seeing for ten years and knows my medical history backwards and forwards prescribed a medication for my condition. It’s gastro-intestinal. The insurance company declined my doctor’s request. The decline was authored by a cardio-vascular physician (without a practice) in an office a thousand miles away, employed by the insurance company, who knows little about my condition. Doctors and patience have their hands tied.
Insurance companies are in the pockets of politicians, who have the best medical coverage for life.
John Kerry once said, “We wish we could offer the American public the coverage we in congress have, but we can’t.” But you can, if you would legislate it. The richest country on the planet is controlled by the greediest on the planet.
3
For the Commenters calling out the Times Editorial Board for hypocrisy re various ACA related court decisions, that is beside the point. The reality is that most Americans are far more concerned with being able to have decent health care without going bankrupt than they care about "the Wall."
5
@Cowboy Marine
But belief in the wall will keep us safe and healthy.
@db2
If such were the case that wall would've been built already, but guess what? -- it's not going to be built, and for the $5+ billion Trump wants for it, a lot more Americans could be insured.
Before this period ends, what with all that has gone on the last few years including the flooding of the federal courts with judges, all the nails that are being driving into the coffins of what was once a democracy will require all of us to learn carpentry to be able to extract all the nails being driven into those coffins.
It is estimated by those in the know, that it will take generations to work through all the damage done.
So let's just write off the 21st century and hope that somewhere in the generational flow will emerge a group that will think not of "me first" but think of "me too."
We tended to count too much on the millennial generation because they seemed to have it all together, but they did not fully realize that the first and most important thing they had to do was vote. Now they and the generations following them will have to deal with the fallout.......and the fallout will likely be beyond anyone's comprehension.
Judge O'Connor is a 1989 graduate of the Southwest Texas School of Law. Apparently, the school does not have a strong set of courses on Constitutional Law, thus this flawed decision.
More troublesome, Senator McConnell's packing of our Federal Judiciary with people of comparable accomplishment and education likely means that we will see more such ill-considered partisan decisions over the next couple of generations.
3
This really could go either way in the Supreme Court. It seems the current court is stacked against the ACA - and it probably is - but Gorsuch and Kavanaugh sided with the liberal justices on a couple of decisions, to the surprise of many. In my opinion, if SCOTUS upholds this decision it will be politically disastrous for the GOP in 2020. In fact, this decision could swing the door wide open for a Democratic populist candidate to run on a Medicare for all message and win, bigly. Oh the irony.
4
If Obamacare is overturned and no alternative is legislated, the Republicans will ride into 2020 like General Custer rode into Little Big Horn.
We might even have single payer health care by 2022.
(I say this as a conservative Trump supporter, albeit one who doesn’t reject single payer out of hand.)
6
@John
If millions of Americans start falling ill and dying, are faced with mounting medical expenses they have no way of paying while watching this president and the Republican Senate he controls growing richer and fatter, they'll be the ones going down like Custer in the Little Big Horn.
The ACA clearly has any number of problems including high premiums if not subsidized, plans with unbelievable co-pays and deductions, and a bad website. Yet, it is also clear that everyone eventually needs to participate in the healthcare system, because death and taxes are inevitable. It is crazy that we are still fighting over something that IS actually affordable if we simply expand to a single payer system and treat healthcare as a necessity for all citizens.
4
And a bad website. How come the Republicans don’t sue over that?
Before this idiotic ruling gets decided by the 5th Circuit, or at worse, forwarded to the Supreme Court, what happens to the tens of millions using Obamacare, or expanded state Medicaid programs -- ONE DAY before enrollment ceases? What are we supposed to do, two weeks before Christmas no less?
These people aren't just stupid, they're cruel.
12
Whatever their cruelty, it’s initial “ etiology,” and whatever enables such ummenschlichkeit to continue THEY- a diverse group of fellow human beings- continue to be unaccountable!
The ACA was never meant to be a perfect solution to the complex healthcare challenges faced by us all. It was designed to level the playing field between the haves and have nots.
The haves have enjoyed their power over individuals access to quality healthcare and have been in total warfare to undermine the law since 2010.
None of us are truly getting our moneys worth in todays healthcare system. Instead we are priortizing corporate profits over quality, affordable care.
One may think they have quality access to services because of their private plans. A closer look at acute care facilities will expose challenges with operations that put profit in front of quality. One has only to look at the hospital acquired infection rates. These are preventable with quality measures implemented and enforced which is also costly to the bottom line.
The best time to to be admitted in a hospital is within the CMS accreditation inspection window.
Your best bet is to stay healthy.
1
O'connor, isn't qualified, to judge a dog show!
2
Mr. Farias engages in the same partisan-painting of judges as Trump!
Only his bogey-judges are "conservatives" in Texas and on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.
That is the mirror-image of the "progressive" judges in California and Hawaii and on the 9th Circuit Court where liberal Attorneys General file their lawsuits in the same act of forum-shopping as Mr. Farias claims to decry here.
Where is the Chief Justice Roberts in the New York Times organization to call Mr. Farias out for his partisan slander of Federal judges?
1
Why stop with the Affordable Care Act?
The Republican vision for America is absolute freedom from the big bad federal government; only states and the Christian Church would have the power to regulate our lives. With that in mind take a moment to consider America as Republicans long to make it.
In the Republican vision for America there is no Social Security, no Medicare, no welfare, no minimum wage, no Workers' Compensation, no Veterans Administration, no Food and Drug Administration, no fair labor standards, no stinking Interstate Highways....
In Republicanstan (formerly known as the United States of America) each of the 50 states passes its own laws, regulating its own citizens, but in accordance with Christianity (as interpreted by Republicans - meaning the Old Testament hell and brimstone minus the New Testament love and compassion).
In Republicanstan it's every man for himself. Your survival will depend on your level of greed, the most honored attribute of Republicans. But since we can't all be wealthy, most must serve the wealthy, so Republicanstan will feature a renewal of feudalism and patronage. If greed doesn't lead you to the top of the heap be prepared to suck up to those who do make it.
But keep in mind, life in Republicanstan can vary significantly by state. Life in California, Massachusetts, Maryland, Connecticut and one or two other states will be tolerable. Life in Kansas, the Dakota's, Wyoming, the deep South will be the wild west and hell on earth.
7
@JABarry - In KS, which refused to allow expanded Medicaid, 15 rural and small town hospitals have closed this year alone, with more slated to follow next year. So many of their patients had no insurance and couldn't pay their bills that the hospitals were facing bankruptcy. So now, Republican policies have led to a situation that makes life even worse for those areas that most strongly supported the GOP and Trump. It's getting to a point that a serious emergency could be a death sentence for those who now live too far from an open hospital.
2
Get used to it. The imbecile in chief is turning the federal courts into a Federalist cocktail party. Drunk on power and originalism, they won’t stop until all laws protecting people and giving them access to criminal and civil justice will be invalidated. The Republican “plan” — die young, stay pretty.
3
Remember this stunt in 2020. By the way,...is Stupidity a preexisting condition?
5
The courts of this infantile land are a curse on it. There are so many irresponsible flake judges that its courts are just an extortion racket for crooked lawyers.
2
@Jordan: The more rural or obscure the court, the more likely it is running a racket with the local authorities.
1
To reduce this to partisan politics opens the gates to the same about Yemen, Flint's water and the migration of hundreds of thousands of citizens from floods, fires and pollution.
If this is partisan then call a plebiscite.
The crowd which is insistent about saying "Merry Christmas" has totally dishonored the teachings of Christ by embracing and applauding taking healthcare away from millions. The malicious irony of this coming so close to Christmas is breathtaking, as was the born again Republicans insistence a few years back at this time of year that unemployment benefits not be extended unless they were tied to a tax cut for the wealthy.
For those with pre-existing conditions this is a nightmare. For those who have chronic conditions this is a nightmare. For those who have children with terrible illnesses, this is a nightmare. For those who can at last afford some modicum of healthcare this is a nightmare. Until this is settled, and with a conservative SCOTUS, the outcome of an appeal all the way to the Supreme Court is in doubt.
Judge Roberts upheld the ACA (if memory serves) because of the mandate, calling it a tax. He also said part of the ACA was unconstitutional. With the mandate gone where does the leave the rest of the ACA?
I have Medicare. I want everyone in this country to have Medicare. There is no reason why a wealthy country like ours cannot have healthcare coverage for all. If we can afford years of war, we can afford healthcare. The blueprint is there.
6
Didn’t the Obama administration argue that the entire legislation required the mandate to function? With the penalty zero, there is effectively no mandate.
1
@KBronson
It might not function as well but that doesn't make it unconstitutional. Big difference .
1
@KBronson
Without the mandate, it is effectively two new limited programs: a Medicaid expansion and an individual plan for low income people. People ineligible for subsidies can’t afford it. It may be constitutional but certainly not the total game changed that it was supposed to be.
Without the mandate, healthcare reform is back in the table either way.
The private American healthcare system and its policies, previous to the Affordable Healthcare Act made it impossible to provide healthcare for my brother and relegated him to a long and painful death as the cancers in his body slowly killed him. Our family's story is not unique.
Spending money for medical care cuts down on the profit of insurance companies. Better to regulate the system to provide for the minimum outlay, higher executive salaries and higher dividends.
3
I have a question: I have a pre-existing condition, namely a visceral hatred of the misogynist, racist, bigoted, adulterous one currently holding the position of the president of the United States. This condition makes it difficult to sleep, causes nightmares, and a variety of other things. Would I be eligible for the ACA under this condition?
7
What I worry about is that in the 5 to 4 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court upholding the ACAct, Justice Roberts relied solely on the constitutional power of Congress to tax. He rejected using the constitution's Interstate Commerce Clause as a basis for his decision. It might be difficult for Roberts to backtrack now and utilize the latter Clause to reverse a decision by the Fifth Circuit should it affirm Judge O'Connor's trial court decision. On a separate note, there is no question that the Right does "forum" shopping (filing cases in Texas in the conservative Fifth Circuit) as they did in seeking to declare Obama's progressive immigration legislation unconstitutional. It is quite cynical that the Right attacks the progressive Ninth Circuit's progressive immigration decisions. Lesson: forum-shopping is just part of the process that we have always lived with even in the Dred Scott decsion. Trump must be stopped in 2020 to "stanch the bleeding" on judicial appointments.
@Stephen St. Hilaire
After thinking a bit more, Roberts's path to historical redemption-- when the case arrives at the SCOTUS-- is to try to convince Gorsuch or Kavanaugh to decide the new case in preserving the ACAct under the Interstate Commerce Clause (ICC) of the constitution. Recall, Roberts rejected using that constitutional basis in his 5 to 4 decision. So, he can still vote against the new case on the basis of the ICC and look consistent; however, neither Gorsuch or Kavanaugh were on the SCOTUS in 2012. Roberts could try to use diplomatic gymnastics with either justice--only one vote needed--and try to save his historical reputation. Either of the other two justices could then use the rubric that the SCOTUS majority used in Bush v. Gore in 2000 and state that their use of the IC Clause is "not precedential" to cover themselves against breaching their true judicial philosophies. Clever, but possible?? Kavanaugh would have an opportunity to restore his reputation for history in the face of Dr. Ford's testimony. Far fetched scenario?
The ACA is about financing healthcare costs. It is not about the cost of healthcare. American healthcare is a many faceted, for-profit nightmare.
The republican plan is to remove limits on health care financing, so that protections to consumers are removed.
3
Did I miss something, or did the Supreme Court of the United States already decide that the ACA was in fact the law of the land? For people who claim to hate frivolous law suits, they certainly file a lot of them. In addition, some of the major price increase in the plans come from the GOPs hard work at undermining the law continuously and causing market instability.
7
@ JRoeBuck
I assume you skipped the article and jumped straight to the headlines based on the question you asked as the article does a good job summarizing the legal question. In that case, let me summarize for you. The lynchpin for upholding the individual mandate in 2012 was that the penalty for not obtaining insurance was, in fact, a tax and not an actual penalty (despite Obama insisting it was not a tax during the political process). You see, it's constitutional to force somebody to buy insurance by taxing them if they don't, but not by simply penalizing them. The Roberts opinion reached to get to that conclusion in 2012 but that became the law of the land. Fast forward to passage of the tax reform bill last December where the Republicans eliminated the penalty "tax" for not obtaining insurance. The point of this case is that the elimination of the "tax" penalty is a new fact that the Roberts opinion never considered. Thus, this new legal fight. So, no, the Supreme Court did not rule that the ACA as currently composed is constitutional. Will they if when they eventually hear this argument? Probably, but not necessarily. The hope of the conservatives is that this new fact gives Roberts wiggle room to change his view.
Thank you for that and the article does explain it. This seems like new territory in overturning a Supreme Court decision by simply tweaking or eliminating provisions of a current law that has been decided. It make sense that in the original 2012 opinion that if any part was unconstitutional, then the court would have and should have struck it down. Instead of wasting time, energy and capital on this, why can’t the GOP simply come up with a better plan? At this point, the burden of pulling the plug on something people rely on would be very detrimental. But hey, I have mine, so I hope they finally succeed. Then we will see how opinion realigns after their debacle.
The GOP had decades to devise a healthcare plan; they did not. All they can do now is try to destroy the only one that became law, simply because it was constructed by President Obama, and passed by Congress. Do they have a plan now? No.
8
Well, I guess the country is too large for every case dear to the Left to be adjudicated in San Francisco's 9th Circuit.
7
Most of the emphasis has been on the damage to coverage for those with preexisting conditions as a result of this lawsuit if the decision is upheld by the Supreme Court. But am I wrong in believing that this would also be the end of the Medicaid expansion, the ability to keep children on parents’ policies until age 26, the exchanges that allow low income people to buy “affordable” coverage and all of the other benefits of the ACA? If this decision is upheld there will be many more people impacted than those with preexisting conditions. Pray for the health of justices Kayan, Sotomayor, Breyer and Ginsberg!
@ Leo
Let me fix this statement for you:
"the ability to keep fully grown adults on their parents’ policies until age 26,"
That adds clarity, but I miss your point. This has been allowed prior to the ACA, but only on the condition they are enrolled students at certain colleges. This was an expanded option and you still pay the premiums for continuing them on the plan.
A "partisan" ruling, you say...? No problem then, right? It'll just be tossed out. Right...? Right...?
2
We have a new ‘play’ now with Emperor Trump, playing the role of sleazy insurance salesman, ‘Dick Drowner’, where Drowner attempts to ‘claw back’ all of the social democracy safety nets that ‘we the American people’ have ever won through more than a century of progressive populists efforts of Mark Twain’s “American Anti-Imperialist League” Against the ‘Robber Barons’, women’s sufferage, the bloody labor rights movement, and FDR’s efforts to provide Social Security, FDIC, Glass Steagal Act, up through LBJ’s Medicare, and Voting Rights, along with Nixon’s EPA are all torn-up in a temper tantrum by Dick Drowner simply to protect his own inherited fortune, which Drowner dearms he had created as the supposedly greatest ‘Empire-builder’ in all the world — but which the actual disguised ‘Trillionaire Empire Gang’ led by Hegy Hoare has manipulated Dick into doing so that the gang can avoid having to return all the loot that they have stolen over the years and hid in the old Assets International Rights Bank from being used through a secretly coming ‘Wealth Reform’ law that the gang knows will be enacted if the hero, ‘Bernie Doright’, is elected, after Dick’s term in cut off prematurely, and the people’s sunrise into a real social democracy fully exposes the ‘Trillionaire Empire Gang’ for what they are.
[This is just a preliminary film treatment, but hopefully ‘the people’ will be able to finish the script and go on to direct and produce a block-buster of a film themselves]
1
The Texas court just negated a law approved by the Supreme Court in 2012 ( a link you published). Is that legal?
5
@Jim - let's just say that it's certainly a clear example of judicial activism.
Like most Americans I am sick and tired of hearing "Repeal and Replace". This mantra has been repeated so many times that no one believes it has any meaning at all. Yes, Obamacare is not the panacea health insurance for all Americans. But right now it does protect many from death and destitution. There are health plans already in place around the world that provide better health for entire nations at much lower cost to taxpayers than what we now have with or without Obamacare. If Trump and the Republican majority Congress wanted to replace Obamacare why haven't they done it already???? How stupid can we Americans be allowing Trump and the Republican Congress to shout "Repeal and Replace", but continue to do absolutely nothing about replacing the failed (non-existent) systems we now have. They are all liars. Begin at the top with Trump and go down to the Republican House and Senate and Republican state legislatures. None has provided affordable health care for all regardless of income or "pre-conditions". They are all liars and frauds and should be replaced by lawmakers who will finally pick and choose among the systems already working for other nations to provide the best possible healthcare to all Americans at the lowest cost to all taxpayers. It can be done if Politicians become actual legislators.
8
Now trump can claim that he can go out in the middle of 5th avenue and kill ten or twenty million Americans and get away with it.
6
Like Trump, Reed O'Connor is a virulent hater of Barack Obama as is indicat4e by many of his previous statements and actions relating to Obama's policies. The American people deserve better than racist extreme right judges who put the lives of millions at risk with no legal foundation.
6
@Jefflz
Most Americans have yet to see the racist connection in this, or anything else Trump has done to repeal every legislation put into place by the Obama administration.
Which is exactly how we ended up with Trump in the White House in the first place.
2
It might possible to accept the premise that Republicans are not simply cruel and vindictive and that they are not against health care, just the means by which it was provided for by the ACA if, IF they had any plan, and proposal to replace it other than Live Rich or Die.
In fact unless they are willing to also overturn the requirements for hospitals to care for all who come to their doors, regardless of ability to pay, not only are they hypocrites who don’t want images of bodies piling up next to emergency room doors they continue to allow mooching, just as the red states mooch from the blue states. If you are going to eliminate the requirement for health insurance you must also take away the incentive to not have it so that people can pass their irresponsibly on to others.
In the Republican telling of “The Christmas Carol” evil spirits force a good and decent man into the politically correct cessation of meting out just punishment for being poor. The same is true for the poor ill-treated Grinch that is beset on by angry villagers who want what he has where, fearing for his life where there is no stand your ground law, he is required to give into the liberal agenda. Even worse is the liberal telling of the birth of Christ who grows up to preach caring for others. This antiestablishment crackpot must be hidden under the bushel of wrath and vengeance of the Old Testament else Republican policy would tossed from the temple.
1
If there was no Medicare and no Medicaid we would not be having all this fuss would we? Seniors on Medicare don't care who gets medical care or not, they got theirs. The very poor who easily qualify for Medicaid don't care because they get covered as long as they stay very poor which is easy as pie in 21st Century America. The Obamacare casualties are the self-employed and unemployed, mostly between the ages of 45-64. Obamacare was a fait accompli by Obama. He had almost 70% of the nation behind him on the issue of the Public Option when he took the reins in 2008 not to mention both Congress and Senate. He could have visited every Blue Dog in Congress and Senate and put the fear of God into their soul (a la Trump) and forced them to vote for a Public Option. But then he was a wise and smart man who looked ahead to the day when he would have to fund his Library and retirement. So he handed the reins over to that idiot Max Baucus who made sure that all we got was a Physician-Insurance-Pharma-Heritage Foundation inspired travesty. We should all sing 'Let it die'. The sooner it dies the sooner we can get started on a real healthcare plan that is Medicare for All. Remember that Obamacare is currenly being used by these same lobbies to stop any real discussion on a Public Option or Medicare for All. They will be really happy to get Obamacare back because all it is and always was crumbs for us and millions for them.
3
WOW, TX politics are something else. Let's see now - Obama is a black democrat so that makes anything to do with him wrong! Having been in the healthcare business for over 40 years and seeing the results of inadequate healthcare being carted out of hospitals to cheap and nasty vans - how can you be against the ACA!
Yes many of these people are drug addicts but all of them are poor and have no healthcare! We spend almost 20% of our GNP on healthcare and also we have the highest incarceration rate in the world! In TX for instance, many prisoners are simply non violent people who were in possession of a few M joints! I was a person who spent in Manhattan in the late 60's and saw how regular users of MJ lost all interest in their surroundings. While traveling I happened to see young people on Unawatuna Beach in Sri Lanka were totally tuned out. We as a society can't let that happen!
Yes Purdue Pharmaceutical company and Oxy have killed thousands of people including the young adult married female of my next door neighbors. They had virtually no healthcare insurance to repair a badly broken foot and when the Oxy became became too expensive - Heroin was much cheaper. BTW Heroin was trademarked by Bayer!
It is all a big sticky mess and our pols are running around like chickens with their heads cut off!
As a counsel to Georgia in the first challenge to the ACA, I heard a lot of the arguments made by the federal government then. The federal government was insistent at the time that the whole clock-like mechanism (Neal Katyal's analogy) needed to hang together. Moreover, there is no severability clause in the law, which is unusual. If Professors Adler and Gluck are shocked at this judge's logic (the professors cited in a hyperlink within this op-ed), then I might suggest that they weren't paying attention to the actual arguments. The deeper problem is that the tax theory was a slender constitutional reed on which to hang this law. Rather than get all exercised about "shocking" arguments (the real shocking one was the Roberts tax confection), it might be good for everyone to sit down and think through what the best system for baseline healthcare care might be. That conversation is overdue.
As for forum shopping, that is a partisan tactic used by both "sides" on such high-octane constitutional questions. Witness the left's forum-shopping in the Ninth Circuit on immigration and border security questions. Forum shopping reform is a question worth pondering, but there is the benefit that it helps hone issues quicker so they get resolved faster.
2
The Roberts opinion upholding the law was predicated on the conclusion that the individual mandate was a tax. He let states off the hook on requiring that they set up their own programs. Frankly, Democrats should be pleased if the Texas district court decision stands and they witness Republican politicians in Congress scramble to undo the mess they have created. Who knows, the nation may come out of this fiasco with a better and more affordable national plan, Miracles sometimes happen.
1
This is a right wing activist decision that means that many people with pre-existing conditions will either leave the country or die. I have congestive heart failure and can barely walk. Non the less I will be leaving for Asia where I can get health insurance, I will never be able to see my family again. And if you think this will be overturned I guess you weren't listening to what was at stake in the Kavanaugh hearings.
163
@Greg Jones Kavanaugh has already ruled in favor of Planned Parenthood. Too early to predict his standing on this issue.
3
@Greg Jones Where in Asia do you think you would be able to get health insurance?
Unless you are a citizen or permanent resident of Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, or Korea I think you are out of luck.
@Greg Jones Where in Asia do you think you would be able to get health insurance?
Unless you are a citizen or permanent resident of Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, or Korea I think you are out of luck.
Health care costs overall are actually starting to decline for first time in at least a decade. I can’t help but think ACA is helping do that. But if we really want lower healthcare costs and better outcomes let’s stop subsidies for corn and give them to things like whole organic foods, dietary education in schools, and parks and athletics. Most health conditions, like heart disease and diabetes, are preventable or can be delayed. If we want a healthy population it starts with access for all to healthy affordable diet and ample physical activity, not hospitals, pharma drugs and medical devices
The United States pays far higher costs for healthcare than any other country with poorer outcomes than many. Statistically this is a function of the money paid to healthcare professionals and not a sicker US population. Even the higher prices we pay for drugs in the US only makes a small contribution to the differential between our healthcare costs and those of other countries.
@JerseyGirl Th US has had higher costs than other developed countries for decades. But it is also true that it is only in last couple of years costs in US have begun to trend downward. My point was that’s a very dramatic new trend and it’s reasonable to believe ACA may in some way be contributing to it through fundamental structural changes like better access to preventive services and evidence based reimbursement policies
The Congress will not be effected by this ruling as they have a golden health plan. It is far superior to the one the general public can afford. In my opinion, Congress should have the same one we have. We pay for theirs so why not b equivalent? Maybe then they would make a health plan that works for all.
2
@ExPatMX - When Congress passed the ACA, they approved a Chuck Grassley amendment that required members of Congress and their staffs to drop their FEHBP insurance and sign up for the ACA through a state exchange. But if the ACA is declared unconstitutional, unlike the average citizen who'll lose his ACA coverage, members of Congress will just go back on the FEHBP plan.
This action is clear evidence of the political bias of certain judges. The Constitution provides for the judicial branch as a supposed neutral arbiter of our laws. Sadly, the selection and confirmation of these judges has seated some that are prejudicial. And that's the worst statement one could make about a judge. Presidents and the Senate have made a mockery of our judicial branch.
2
@Ken L
"Certain" judges? But certainly not those who have stifled Trump's immigration initiatives. Those judges are profound and courageous.
3
So here it starts, fellow citizens: the war on voters is out in the open. Of course sooner or later the now partisan court system was going to apply the rule of gold: he who has the gold, rules. This judgment is nothing more than a statement that elected officials cannot pass legislation that takes money from citizens for anything that cannot be easily extrapolated from the Constitution. We can be taxed for war which is stated in the Constitution but not for health which is not. Corporations which are not people are bizarrely considered to have a political body and therefore be allowed to exercise free speech to the extent that their profits will allow, but the real voter has to exert enormous effort to be heard. And now that the right wing has captured the Court system the law will shift its “logic” to more and more disempower the individual without a pile of money. Democracy has been killed here, as elsewhere, by money driven hypocrites who mouth the words of the Constitution before the cameras but don’t do the work of legislating FOR the people, but rather for those whom capitalism has empowered.
3
Conservatives may be inadvertently ushering in single payer. If the market-based solution to America’s healthcare crisis is found to be unconstitutional, there’s only one other alternative: single payer
Beyond the evil of the Republican Party, in pretty much everything, their almost ten year battle against the ACA will result in the passage- by 2021- of a some sort of single payer health insurance- Medicare for All.
In their insane drive to do evil to as many people as possible, the GOP as they lose more and more of the public will see the pendulum of politics go far to the left.
Democratic Socialism- here we come.
1
As I predicted all along, Obamacare has been stuck down as an UNCONSTITUTIONAL disaster! Now Congress must pass a STRONG law that provides GREAT healthcare and protects pre-existing conditions.
President Trump tweet, December 14, 2018
That is coming for a man whom supported a bill which would had allow insurance companies to do not insure people with pre-existing condition and would had let millions of Americans without healthcare insurance.
Well, do you remember that poster in the 70s which showed a picture of President Nixon with the following line: Do you will buy a used car from that man?
Ask yourself: Do you will buy a use car from Trump?
It seems as though Universal Healthcare Insurance is being discussed 'persistently' now, given that the cost of affordable quality care is becoming prohibitive for a sizable segment of the population. Health Care as a 'right' has been much more acceptable in other 'advanced' economies (countries), the 'rub' in the U.S. being the decision, during the Second World War, of asking 'employers' to offer health insurance' as an enticement for employment. Ever since, any change towards 'universal care' independent from employment has met with what seems a tough wall to break. What is galling, and hypocritical, is the republican tribalism in trying to deny others (the poor, the young, the elderly, women, etc) what they themselves take for granted. These United States are a 'rich' country with the proviso of persistent economic segregation; and 'inequality the main enemy of the good'.
Decisions like this - based in personal ideology without foundation in law - erode the trust in the courts in general. It diminishes the belief in a law-based judiciary. People like this judge should never make it to the bench. They are a curse on institutions needed for a lawful, functional society. THIS is like courts in developing nations and I guess it is where we are heading. Where the rich have all the power and can do as they please.
1
I am of the opinion that the ACA is a complete and utter disaster. My weekly premium's have went up nearly 40% as of its passing, and having the word "affordable" in its name is both an oxymoron as well as a misnomer. And that is just the client end of things. Talk to anyone in the healthcare profession, and they will quickly tell you how much of a mess the ACA has caused for their jobs.
I like Obama, but one of the biggest failures of his presidency was ramming this thing through Congress without proper consideration of its long term impacts. As a result we have a totally broken healthcare law that is limping along to its grave while the Trump administration rips it down piece by piece. This latest lawsuit was the death-knell.
However, notwithstanding, I DISAGREE with this judge's decision. Despite my contempt for the ACA, my contempt for "legislating from the bench" is even greater. It's a complete abuse of judicial power, and is why our courts need reformation. It's wrong when the decision has a liberal bias, and it's wrong when the decision has a conservative bias. The law is the law, and it needs to be created, amended, and/or repealed by the branch that is accountable to the voters - i.e. Congress.
Liberals, you just got a taste of your own medicine. We don't need Republican judges, we don't need Democrat judges. We need judges who will interpret laws AS WRITTEN.
1
@Jon K
Here's an idea. Don't like your premiums? Why not change your coverage and stop blaming Obama, Liberals and everyone else -- then think about how much your medical bills would cost if you weren't insured at all, like many of your fellow Americans will soon be if this administration is allowed to repeal what's left of the Affordable Care Act.
1
@N. Smith
Isn't the goal to make it more affordable? Isn't that the best way to ensure all Americans can access healthcare? Sad to hear a New York City Democrat tell me to simply "change my coverage" if I don't like it.
Are you really a Democrat? Because that sounds like something the GOP used to say. But I suppose in the current era of tribal-style party loyalty Democrats must continue to defend the ACA - no matter how much of a sinkhole it's become. Party over country is the new way it seems.
By the way - I'm one of the lucky few who can afford it. It's not an issue with me. But my heart goes out to families making $20-$25 an hour (not a shabby wage by any means). How do you expect those guys to afford $20k a year in premiums + rent/food and other living expenses?
@Jon K
Whoa. STOP right there! ... You know nothing of my political affiliation, so don't jump to conclusions.
And just for the record, the point I'm making is that affordability is EXACTLY what allows Americans to choose the type of coverage they can best handle -- so why not change yours if you have the ability to do so?
And that's a financial question, not a "tribal" one.
I would rather have my tax dollars support Medicare for all, not a war against the people of Yemen on behalf of the Saudis.
6
There's a reason why people with degrees from ranked law schools make better Federal judges. This opinion by O'Connor is proof. He isn't trying to be mediocre, he just is. His pedestrian decision is a reflection of a person who thinks he has been rigorous when his work product is, in fact, sophomoric.
In his average mind he truly believes it is more important to employ a weak, self-defined conservatism than to let the law lead him. Hence, voila, he searches for arguments intended to support his foregone conclusion.
Sad. But he's the flavor that comes with the ideology within the party the Republicans have been building way before Trump. Now, with the perfect convenient fool in the White House, expect more sick mediocrity, and a lot more sickness generally, for a long long time.
As the more eloquent Socrates says, "Nice GOP People."
1
"The reason the judge, Reed O’Connor, gets these cases isn’t a mystery: Texas and its allied states know the game and shop these lawsuits right into Judge O’Connor’s courtroom." How pointedly the Republicans learn from the Democrats!
3
Mandatory car insurance: No problem...
Mandatory healthcare insurance: Unconstitutional...
How can we tolerate one person without healthcare coverage?
3
And the final ruling will come from Kavanaugh's supreme court? God help us.
1
If the Republican's tax bill is repealed, we will have the ACA back.
2
My new healthcare policy is going to be "DNR."
2
Is compulsory auto insurance also unconstitutional?
266
@Michael Kubara. You can choose not to drive. You can’t choose to have a life. However, this ruling is not about the individual mandate. That was removed from the law by the recent tax bill. The ruling use farcical logic that since the Supreme Court only ruled that the mandate was a lawful tax, then the balance of the law must be unconstitutional. Seriously.......
12
Yes, by fed govt
No for states , New Hampshire doesn't require auto insurance
Health and education are luxuries, Congress can allocate fund but not require, but that can be debated,
"provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare"
Even conservative journals report total "defense" costs over $1T, most for "foreign entanglements," actual defense is really 1% of that
The other 99% should go to "general Welfare." According to me but I can't afford to buy any congresspeople.
Defense is in the constitution so it is required. Conservative journals estimate the annual cost over $1T, whereas defending our borders would cost a few billion, DoD is not defense (it's "foreign entanglements."
So if killing is not a requirement, it's a luxury we can afford, why not health? Congress can allocate
6
@Michael Kubara
Maybe it is in Canada, but I wouldn't suggest driving without it here.
3
Private insurance is the Republican solution to funding health care and it has worked terribly. ACA was insurance reform and was done in a way that Democrats hoped would draw some bi-partisan support. But no, Republicans have chosen not to work with Democrats in any way regardless of the issue or the importance of that issue.
Sadly there is no such thing as a bipartisan solution at this point. It is clear to me that we can take no action on Health care and Climate change until the Republicans are voted out in huge numbers. In the case of health care, a complete collapse of the system is probably the only way the country will unite. In the case of climate change the catastrophe big enough to cure the skeptics will only happen after it is too late to change it. Thanks Republican voters.
2
My 23 year old son was just diagnosed with glaucoma. This ruling strikes fear into my heart.
2
Access to healthcare is a fundamental human right, the same right we recognize in public education and protection from fire or crime. Everyone's been blessed with the gift of life, and no one seeks lupus, MS, cancer, RA or any disease that can strike as randomly, and far more frequently, than fire or crime. Perhaps this decision will help opponents of Medicare recognize we have a responsibility to protect each other from a medical crisis that can bankrupt most families, as cancer does. We have the right to become self-insured as a nation, and I hope more Americans impress on their representatives that Medicare for all, financed through payroll taxes that will replace private premiums, is the best way to adequately improve health outcomes for all Americans. Business could cover the employee portion of Medicare for All as an additional tax-free benefit. We still have time to get it right and ensure every American or legal resident has equal access to universal, comprehensive, portable, and publicly owned health insurance, so the CEO or janitor cleaning the office at night can see any doctor accepting new patients or be admitted to any medical facility they recommend with minimal out of pocket expense.
5
what a weak argument - comparing all those dread diseases against something really and truly meaningful and vastly more worthwhile: money for the already rich. this is Texas, boy: no income taxes, no zoning, no regulations, just good ole freedom. next case!
You want "Medicare" for all? There are19 countries which offer universal health care. It will never happen in the US where corporations rule. The medical industrial complex is all powerful as is the military industrial complex, the fossil fuel people, and the large corporations in general. These corporations finance both parties. Hillary was against Medicare for all if you remember and Obama did not press for the public option.There is no hope. Who said, " Power to the people"? Will never happen. The people are pawns. Intimidated,,, paycheck to paycheck.
1
@Keith,
Framing and wrapping everything in as a "Human Right" is the newest from of liberal affliction. And there's no cure for it, not even Obama Care can help.
Do your part. NOW! Write your nearest ACLU office, asking them to open a complaint against this judge. The Supreme Court has already ruled on parts of the Obamacare law, finding it to be valid. Here we have a rogue judge that needs removal from office.
The discipline process of federal judges is initiated by the filing of a complaint by any person alleging that a judge has engaged in conduct "prejudicial to the effective and expeditious administration of the business of the courts, or alleging that such judge is unable to discharge all the duties of the office by reason of mental or physical disability." If the chief judge of the circuit does not dismiss the complaint or conclude the proceedings, then he or she must promptly appoint himself or herself, along with equal numbers of circuit judges and district judges, to a special committee to investigate the facts and allegations in the complaint. The committee must conduct such investigation as it finds necessary and then expeditiously file a comprehensive written report of its investigation with the judicial council of the circuit involved. Upon receipt of such a report, the judicial council of the circuit involved may conduct any additional investigation it deems necessary, and it may dismiss the complaint.
Ask an honest doctor. Single payor health care is preferable to the mosaic of gouging health care options private or semi-private. Why is that the case? Well, a Medicare fee in the hand is worth a meaningless approval/non-approval, two rejections and a down-graded fee grudgingly paid in six months to a year. (For doctor, do not read the providers who offer "life-style enhancement". I am talking about life-saving physicians.
And there are the millions of "keep the government's hands away from my Medicare" clients who are perfectly satisfied with their plan.
Who opposes single-payer? Well, it is the gargantuan healthcare insurer lobby who buy and sell legislators and the executive with their "Citizens United" lucre. Their dividends go to corporate executives in the form of salary and bonuses, and to politicos in the form of campaign contributions and informative junkets.
A rational single-payer system offering universal healthcare is the only rational service to provide healthcare to the people. Of course, rational means that a nose job is not a vital service in order to enhance life-saving improved self esteem. Injections of macerated monkey glands should not be reimbursed despite a cousin's report that it improved chronic fatigue. And the Mexican clinic offering the cure for cancer might not deserve compensation even though "everyone deserves a chance at life no matter how small that chance and no matter the cost".
Realistic, single payor is best.
6
Your tax dollars at work.
1
Why is it that when Trump calls out judges for being political—he should not—NYTimes is horrified, but when a judge rules inconsistently with progressive-think, the NYTimes calls that judge out for being political. Criticize the ruling, not the judge. NYTimes should know better.
6
@Thomas Hobbes
It should know better, but it does not.
Liberals good.
Conservatives bad.
2
The other week the NYT was praising Justice Roberts who corrected Trump when he complained about partisan judges on the 9th circuit. Now a decision goes the other way you are criticizing a partisan judge. Rank hypocrisy on NYT's part.
6
Don't worry.
Remember, we still, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, have john roberts', ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, supreme court, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, to do the right, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, unbiased, ha, ha, ha, ha, thing.
3
Middle class voters keep electing republicans that do them personal harm. May I suggest that these voters hire a dominatrix and leave the rest of us out of your fetish?
6
@Paulie As the Trump voter said on the news... "Get the government out of my Social Security!"
2
@Paulie
Correction. White. Poor and Working-class voters overwhelmingly elect Trump and Republicans, because most middle-class voters have realized by now that they're the ones getting stuck with the bills.
2
Resist Tyranny! Invesigate, indict, try, sentence! The waters are rising!
The ruling has basis in the law because the ACA does not. The gyrations that Roberts and the other four on the court went thru with regard to calling the penalty a tax were absurd. Laws should be interpreted by the SCOTUS as written - nor re-written by a Chief Justice to fit his sensibilities. This will end up back at the Supreme Court. Our health care laws are a joke.
4
OLnce people see the sticker shock in April 2019 when they file their taxes I think things will change. The tax give away to the rich is going to come back to bite The GOP in the rear. When The Left ties the loss of health care to 20 million people to the tax bill passed by The Right my money is on common sense will win out.
1
How do we get past this? A law that stipulates "It shall be unlawful for elected and appointed officials of the US and their families to possess, or be covered by health insurance, or accept or receive medical treatment or services gratis, or at reduced rates; except under such insurance plans that cover all Americans, should such plans exist in the future."?
1
If there's any one issue that should be bipartisan it's health care for all. The very heart of the matter is that Republican legislators assert if you cannot afford health care it's too damn bad, while the Democratic legislators want free health care for those who cannot afford it. There's no middle ground here. It was just a matter of time before some Republican judge issued a decision to scrap the ACA, even though SCOTUS settled the matter in 2012. If it goes to SCOTUS this time, we will see the demise of the ACA because the court is clearly Republican dominant and Roberts will not take the courageous stand he took the last time. Anyone who thinks the courts are free from political influence is sadly mistaken.
1
It will be interesting if Judge Roberts and the Supreme Court save's Republican's hides again.
39
@Glenn This is why Democrats can't have good things: they don't appreciate anything you do for them.
If you'll take a moment to recall, it was Chief Justice Roberts that *saved* Obamacare last time it went to bat at the Supreme Court.
5
Or if the Left can get the case reopened in San Francisco's 9th District where you can be sure they'll rule according to whatever is the accepted wisdom on MSNBC.
5
@Glenn I'm not sanguine the USSC will intervene yet again. The only possible error on the part of O'Connor is the severability stuff, and he makes a good case that the text of the ACA itself declares the Individual Mandata as "essential" the entire law. Ergh.
Het your facts straight! December 15 is not the end of open enrollment! That date is a cut off for for coverage starting January 1, 2019. Then that the open enrollment will be for coverage starting February 1, 2019.
1
Decisions are only partisan and activist when the Editorial Board disagrees with them.
7
I think the judge made his decision based on the "penumbras and emanations" of the Constitution.
2
Rulings by federal judges are only "partisan" when they rule against Democrat legislation. When federal judges rule against Republican legislation, they are honky dory with The Times, Democrat, liberals and progressives.
6
When the South lost the Civil War, the first thing the Confederate generals did was burn the crops, tear up the railroad tracks and factories and bury the canons. This was so that the northern forces could not use them.
But, of course, what this did was also basically doom the South to generations of poverty as their economic base was destroyed too. Suicide seems to be the prevailing thought process. It is like all of those cults that end themselves in mass suicide.
I truly believe that if the U.S. didn't arrive in Berlin when they did forcing Hitler to commit suicide, the Nazis may have chosen to use the atom bomb they were developing on themselves just to spite the Allied Powers.
2
What is going on? Again? The same fight over and over. President Trump drowning in scandal need for revemge== complied Texas Style.....Ridiculous.
2
Republicans should be careful for what they wish. If the ACA is held unconstitutional, its replacement may very well be a single payer system such as Medicare for all. Trump's political capital is falling fast due to the many investigations of him. Enough political chips had already moved over to the Democratic side of the table to enable a shift of some forty House seats to Democrats. As Trump's political capital decreases, there is good reason to believe that the Senate will turn Democratic controlled as there are many Republican Senate seats up in 2020. And unless the Democrats manage to mess up a free lunch, the White House should as well be occupied by a Democrat. The opportunity for a single payer system will never have been better.
2
Still don't understand how those claiming to be "pro-life", also seems to be the same people who are against ACA, imho that's the very opposite, anti-life. Same people also seem to be more "Christian" but none seems to have read the good book.
'The Sheep and the Goats'
…[37]Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You something to drink? [38]When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? [39]When did we see You sick or in prison and visit You?’ [40]And the King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me.’
2
I could substitute illegal immigration as the subject and multiple left-wing DEMOCRAT states as the shopping-around entities and note that the NYT fully supported these activities over the past 18+ months. And the rulings from that judicial never-never land in Hawaii were to apply nationwide. What an aggrandizement of power for a little district court judge! But the NYT found no concern about that ONLY BECAUSE IT AGREED WITH THE RESULT. Was the district court judge itching to the bidding of the Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer? Hypocritical editorial but SOP.
5
@edward smith Get Mitch McConnell to bring up one of the many immigration reform proposals gathering dust in committees, including those favored by Bush 43 before the GOP ostensibly became a whites-only party. Either way, most Americans care more about having access to decent health care that doesn't bankrupt them than they do about "the Wall."
2
Merry Christmas all ye with pre-existing conditions, sick children, who are self employed or contract workers. The GOP is the party that keeps on taking away. Start with the grinches in Texas who initiated this lawsuit and all the grinch governors who joined the suit. But this is also a present to bankruptcy lawyers and a lump of coal for hospitals big and small who rely on insurance payments to keep their doors open.
4
Gerrymandering healthcare into the courtroom of a partisan hack!
6
There is a certain flavor of insanity in the Republican party that seeks to risk millions of American lives by taking their health care away from them. I can't comprehend the obsession that sought to take away health care many dozens of times. Without malice, I can only conclude that the Republican party is trying to kill many weak by other means.
2
Maybe, Judge O'Connor's ruling of striking down ACA is a good thing. The United States Appeals Court of the Fifth Circuit might reverse it. The Supreme Court might toss it out because it has already ruled ACA is constitutional. Justice Kavanaugh too beecause he will support precedents. Too many ifs and buts. But one thing is definite. Purple Texas will certainly turn blue. And before all legal wrangling is done with 2020 would have arrived.
1
"shopping these lawsuits" is the main headline here. As long as Mitch McConnell and majority Republican senate can continue to name Jurists "with a history of ruling against policies advanced by President Barack Obama" the ACA, social security and medicare will be in jeopardy going forward far into the future (whoever is in the Oval Office). Sen. McConnell is the cancer that is metastasizing rapidly in all our federal courts.
2
That Trump should be so pleased about millions of people potentially losing their health insurance is disgusting. He's off to play golf while millions now have this worry hanging over them. I would be one of them, but I recently turned 65 and became eligible for Medicare. Previous to that though, I bought my insurance through my state marketplace, and it was insurance I could afford. I was laid off from my job at age 62. The only job I could find at the time didn't provide health insurance and without the ACA I would have been uninsured.
I wish politicians could know how it makes Americans like me feel to know we matter so little to them. How it feels to be pandered to and lied to, with their empty promises of "wonderful" healthcare. I am a proud Democrat, but I am just as disillusioned as any Trump supporter, except unlike them I know he's not the savior he promised to be. To know that he's pleased with himself and would consider the loss of health insurance for millions a major victory makes me sick to my stomach.
339
@Ms. Pea Medicare for all is the only answer. It guarantees health care for all
is a less expensive alternative to all other. Which party will have the courage to do it? We don't have anyone like FDR or LBJ on our side.
21
@Ms. Pea I wish I was 65...instead I am 57 with congestive heart failure and now all I can do is either leave the country or die.
12
@Ms. Pea...Wait until Medicare runs you through its wringer a few times. Don't forget to buy your supplement insurances to cover all of the stuff Plans A & B don't cover - dental, drugs, the 20%. Don't forget your deductibles. Ask providers if they take Medicare - not all do. Watch out for out-of-system payments when you travel or even just cross state lines - they can bankrupt you. Good health.
It may be true that the Affordable Care Act still stands. But that is cold comfort to those whose loved ones depend on the ACA to say alive. The health care of so many has suddenly become precarious, their very lives thrown into doubt. At a time when we are singing Joy to the World and Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, Republicans are celebrating the potential loss of health care for millions of Americans. Is trying to ruin people's lives all they really seek to do? During a season of Goodwill Toward Men, Republicans, through their coniving judge, have just caused widespread despair. Their cruelty knows no bounds.
6
But there are no partisan judges. There are only good, honest, neutral arbiters calling balls and strikes, right? Didn't good ol' honest Justice John Roberts tell us that?
6
I can hardly wait to see how Trump boasts about _finally_ getting rid of Obamacare, as people start losing basic protections.
As someone who lives in a reddish part of the country, I always believed that the law would never survive. Many out here do not like to be told what to do, particularly by the government. That goes from trashing their land and the waters that might flow through them, to protecting their own health (or those around them).
That is until they are forced to hold bake sales and charity events to help pay their medical bills. Communities do rise to the occasion out here, but the sale of a plate or two of cookies is not nearly enough to cover the tens of thousands of dollars a family can face if they don't have insurance (and sometimes even if they do).
To me, the only solution is to provide a level of health insurance for all people -- a basic medicare for all. I hate to sound so jaded, but then you'll soon see the same people out there marching with signs "keep the government out of my medicare."
5
@avrds - My red state refused to allow expanded Medicaid. As a result, 15 rural and small-town hospitals closed their doors this year alone, with more hospitals in jeopardy for next year. So many of their patients had no insurance and couldn't afford to pay their bills that these hospitals faced bankruptcy. What that means is that a serious medical emergency in these rural areas could well be a death sentence because the nearest hospital is so far away. It also means that all those people who used their hospital as primary care will have no place to go.
For the Republican party the Japanese have a word for this: harikari.
4
Affordable, quality health care should be made available to all of the citizens of the richest country of the world. The ACA took a marked step towards this goal. Instead of making proposals that are better ideas towards achievement of health care for all, a group of partisans are hell bent on destroying the ACA (for whatever reason, an Obama achievement, to reduce the size of government, or whatever). With the result of creating an insurance and health care crisis. The creative solution, is the former. The vindictive path is the latter. Once again, we all can see who the “party of ideas” is not.
If you think the mid-terms was a wave, this is a start of the 2020 election tsunami.
4
Normally you have people interested in working together to improve it. The problem is, the GOP has never wanted to ocver pre-existing conditions, keep the costs affordable, or even whether or not citizens have access to healthcare they can afford. So, the ACA is flawed, but not because Democrats haven't put forth a valiant effort to help Americans.
3
Anti-logic: Congress has the right to tax, but if they lower an existing tax rate to zero it is not a tax, so its entire law is against the Constitution.
Congress has broad tax powers, but the Constitution is specific in two amendments about those powers: no poll tax, and income tax is allowed by amendment. Meanwhile the Earned Income Credit functions as intended, a credit which yields a net tax rate Less than zero. So a tax rate that varies from below zero to 100% is OK, but at exactly zero it is unconstitutional? Remember that based on the 2012 decision Congress could raise the rate above zero again later. This decision is just a blatant attempt to force the case before SCOTUS again. Justice Roberts will lose control of his court if he votes to overrule his own Stare Decisis.
7
This hits home for tens of millions of Americans.
Yesterday when I heard the news, I was literally working on Christmas wreaths and listening to Christmas music. My brother whose aggressive surgery earlier in the year was paid for by his ACA coverage had a test that showed he is cancer free although still recovering. A close friend was waiting yesterday to see if her severely disabled child would be accepted into a new medical protocol.
In Georgia where almost 500,000 are covered by the ACA, more than 70% of Georgians including Republicans want the state to expand its Medicaid.
Before the ACA, a study showed that about 45,000 Americans died unnecessarily each year due to lack of health coverage. A government study found that one of Trump's environmental policies that he pushed through will cost 14,000 Americans their lives every year. 60,000 lives are the human cost.
The malevolent glee that Trump, Fox and Republicans had at this partisan decision completely reveals what type of people they are. There has been vicious cruelty on display anyway with small children dying at the border or being caged.
No, it's not safe to wish anyone a Merry Christmas anymore. They may be losing their healthcare, their jobs if they worked for GM or industries hit by trade wars, their homes if there is a Trump depression, or their lives.
6
A death panel does exist. It's the Republican Party.
13
The great white republican party of so-called "evangelical christians" wishes you a Merry Christmas.
8
Mrs. O'Connor: How was your day at work dear. Judge O'Connor: I stripped health care from 52 million needy women and children. Mrs. O'Connor: That's nice honey, wash up for dinner, the Preacher's coming for dinner tonight.
5
Enjoy a Happy & Healthy Holiday, America...
- The Republican Party
4
“I am your voice.”
2
The ACA is going down, it and the entire dumpy set of constructs it’s illegally based on.
3
@There
And here's hoping you're never faced with outrageous medical bills with no medical insurance -- you'll be but one of the millions of Americans who might end up in the same position.
3
@There
As the ACA goes, so goes middle class savings, the last vestige of honest government and the form of government that your fellow citizens died to preserve for you. As your corporate buddies carve up our goose to get its golden eggs, you will slowly come to see what you have helped to hand them. Congratulations.
Everyone wants healthcare.
How do we pay for it?
How much should it cost?
Why is healthcare so expensive?
Should ER's be required to treat people?
What is the ACA?
As a nation we can't even answer the basic questions, but expect a solution.
2
@Martin
Want a solution? Get one from Canada, England, France, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, Austria or even Cuba. Everyone has a better system than we do. This is not rocket science.
Predictable NTY take. Decsions that go against DJT are good. Decisions that support him are bad.
5
THe GOP message remains the same. .don't get sick
but if you do die quickly
this decision is garbage.
5
It is remarkable how right wing ideologues, both in and out of the judging profession, will not let go of this issue, despite all of the rational underpinnings that support it...
The conceptual basis for insurance is rooted in the idea of shared risk. There needs to be an “insurance pool” representative of the risk spectrum that exists for the population as a whole. This is how the lifetime costs of protection for an entire population gets dramatically lowered...
You can not buy collision insurance the day after you wreck your car, or catastrophic loss insurance the day after your house explodes from a gas leak. There’s a reason for this - it would be prohibitively expensive to do so.
Those who theoretically would opt out of the mandate would do so with the comfort of knowing they can (when in real need) simply present themselves at an emergency room in order to get care for free. ERs have no right to turn them away. But, there’s no way such costs should be passed off on the broader population. In the absence of a mandate, that’s what will happen.
We must insist that insurance be true insurance. And we must do it over the objections of these “born on third base”, “self-made”, Ayn Randian, Federalist Society sponsored judges who keep crawling out of their hole to revisit this issue.
4
you don't need no stinking healthcare
1
Thanks Texas.
1
How dare the NYTimes attack the independence of the judiciary. It looks like the NYTimes is now as great a threat to the Republic as the Trumpster is.
2
GOP is trying to kill us; thx. Remember this when you vote. Ray Sipe
3
Trump is an infantile hate monger. He wants to destroy anything that is associated with Obama. Why? Because he is a racist. Nuff said.
3
Let Texas secede.
2
@Vincent Amato
And maybe build another Wall...
1
It seems that right-wing activist judges, GOP legislators and the donor class do not have much use for THE most important sentence in the Constitution -- the first one. The one that establishes the mission of the document. The one that begins with the words "We the People..."
That sentence includes this little chestnut: "promote the general Welfare" of the people of the United States.
Dooming millions to preventable death does not really sound like promoting the "general welfare" of Americans.
4
This is today's radical, broken GOP. While most would prefer Medicare for all, or single-payer, the GOP won't even stand for a plan based on their own party's earlier vision of health care. The ACA is based on notions put forth by Nixon, Dole and Romney. After seven years of screaming "repeal and replace," the GOP revealed that their only plan was to cut taxes on the donor class. Now, the GOP would strip health care from millions and sentence hundreds of thousands to death.
Enough.
In less than two years, trump will be in prison and a Democrat will be president. It is time codify the inescapable fact that access to quality health care is a right. We are the wealthiest nation on the planet. No more tax cuts for the 1% at the expense of tens of millions of Americans. Enough of the GOP's moral bankruptcy. Today's GOP s is un-American. Democrats, Independents and former Republicans will be required to save health care, address climate change, rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, end corporate welfare, and roll back tax cuts for the greedy. There is much work to do.
5
The Rube Goldberg contraption that is American health care will have to be replaced by something better. A single-payer is the only way to go. But for those starry-eyed liberals who think you can have comprehensive health care for everybody simply by raising the taxes on those evil “rich” (which is a code word for those who make a fraction more than you do), let me share some insights from my personal experience with several European single-payer systems (and yes, they are all different). First, you have to raise taxes on everybody - and I mean everybody, including people on Medicare and Medicaid. If you get a dollar from the Federal government, 10 cents will have to go back to pay for your healthcare. Second, care has to be rationed. Third, the well-off will have to have access to more advanced and costly procedures than the rest of us. Fourth, the system needs to be able to nudge or even force people into making certain lifestyle choices. I am on board with all these conditions because I have the means to purchase a supplementary insurance if necessary. Are you?
1
And people will be on board because they do not have the means
Millions of Americans of all ages - sick and healthy - now stand to lose their only grasp of health care. The GOP finally got its wish.
Thank you, Republicans.
3
If nothing else, Reed O'Conner just handed Democrats a huge victory too. I'm sure voters will want know why states are allowed to proceed in this litigation against the popular will. They will want to know why the White House refuses to defend health care despite promises to the contrary. And they will certainly want to know why the Republican Congress isn't moving preemptively to protect their health care from judicial attack.
The 2020 Democratic platform basically writes itself. Additionally, Democrats can introduce a bill in January and force the issue to a vote. The new Congress will have to go on record voting against Obamacare. Republicans will get absolutely destroyed by the specter of health care rollbacks. Once again, the GOP has sown the seeds of their destruction. They simply can't let Obamacare go.
Personally, I would like to see Medicare for all or something similar. However, you can't say Obama wasn't smart. Obamacare is train wreck of complexity and unprincipled compromise. The law is a disaster. But... Republicans can't help pushing the big red button Obama left behind. The temptation is too much for Republicans to resist. The GOP are well on their we to ensuring we get a universal health care system as a result.
2
Hardly content with feathering the nests of the penguins at the top of the iceberg, the Republican Party is dedicated to the proposition of harming most of the American people most of the time with boneheaded moves like this. It is just amazing to me that the GOP can get elected to any office of any kind, given that they are so excessively mean of spirit and devoid of constructive ideas.
4
Unbelievable but true. The rich want that only them could access good health cares.
Roberts saved the ACA by calling it a tax (something its supporters flatly denied) so if there's no tax element to it anymore then on what legal basis does it survive?
1
I am a lawyer representing families of children with disabilities. The ACA was a godsend for future planning because prior to the law's preexisting conditions provisions, the only way for adults with disabilities to get health insurance was to be legally disabled, and impoverished, and qualify for medical assistance. Since the ACA liberated people with disabilities from the welfare system for basic health care, a world of possibilities opened. Are we going back? This whipsawing of social policy and progress based solely on political talking points in support of established wealth is simply despicable.
3
It took Medicare and social security years to get established. And the GOP would still like to privatize these programs as a giveaway to Wall Street.
These are the rumblings that healthcare for all is going to go through now and for awhile. But if our nation continues to succeed economically, it will have to become permanent.
Given the partisan stance the GOP has taken, I believe it will hasten their demise as a viable party as their voters eventually realize they are going to do without healthcare and especially healthcare that is portable.
1
Legislation to protect pre-existing conditions is meaningless unless it also includes prohibitions on charging people with pre-existing conditions more money for the same coverage as healthier people. The Republicans never had a replacement plan for the ACA. They bluffed and now millions of Americans are likely to face increased suffering and even death because they won't be able to afford health insurance.
Unless the recent court decision is overturned we're back to the pre-ACA dark ages. The only bright spot in all of this is that it makes it crystal clear the only viable solution to our healthcare crisis is some form of single-payer coverage. Every other country has figured this out and hopefully we're eventually figure it out as well. Of course that means removing the Republican party from power. 2020 can't come soon enough.
People were angry because president Obama "lied" about whether you could keep your doctor. Well folks, your Republican representatives lied about having any viable alternative to offer the American people. Perhaps it's time to turn your rage towards them.
6
Democrats don't dare change anything in the ACA. Otherwise Democrats will correctly be branded as taking away something from someone. Look what happened when Republicans tried to improve Obamacare with a replacement that kept coverage for pre existing conditions. Democrats complained that it was a bad move and wouldn't support any changes. I guess that everyone wants the highest level of medical care possible and wants someone else to pay for it.
@Robert Winchester
Just for the record.
REPUBLICANS OFFERED NO REPLACEMENT FOR THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT.
There. I fixed that for you.
3
They very idea that there are people, much less judges, that would strip people of their healthcare, or opposed people having healthcare is not understandable. But they have theirs, right?
1
All those interested in repealing the AFFORDABLE care act have the best medical coverage. Judges, congress, trump, the three branches of government. Do Americans enjoy voting themselves into poverty and ill health? They seem to.
Years ago, Blue Cross Blue Shield was a non-profit organization providing medical coverage for Americans. Then greed contaminated health coverage and here we are struggling to keep our families healthy, while Judges, congress and a felonious president trample our existence.
My family has always worked for others, which has shown me one thing, always...business is a dishonest endeavor. Always hiding the truth from its customers. Whether it’s health care or products, like Johnson and Johnson or the tobacco or automobile industry. Dishonesty rules politics and business and those two are hand in glove.
4
Honestly, what has happened to common decency and respect for mankind. It is disgusting! Where is our collective common sense? Take a drive around the country and see how many people are struggling. Too many! Many American's depend on the ACA for their survival. If this decision fails to get reversed, the GOP will put the last nail in their coffin.
4
Please tell me what all those Republican families are going to do for health insurance. This puts us back to insurance company rule. We will no longer have coverage for preexisting conditions and high costs will be the rule. I don't get it. This cannot go well for Republicans but they keep shooting themselves in the foot. It seems that they hunger for pre-Obama conditions regardless of any logic. Going to the Supreme Court will likely be a waste of time. All that political body needs to do is kick it back to the states.
4
I, and I hope the entire American population at this point, am so very tired of the continuing and pathetic Republican assault on what is a quite (and many say too) moderate and reasonable healthcare law that allows millions to access healthcare. I have been on an ACA plan since the day it started--it allowed me to escape a miserable job and become a productive and happy freelancer, doing what I loved. But thanks to the continual mean-spirited and, to me, incomprehensible attacks on and undercuttings of the ACA by the GOP, each year I bite my nails, write my representatives and hope to a higher power that at some point every single one of these politicians who continue to erode the ACA are voted out of office, and that I, and the U.S.A., can breathe again.
3
We need concentrated constitutional review. The Constitution does not require lower federal courts. Madison wanted them as an option because he was afraid state court judges would not carry out federal law. What an irony we now have: a singe federal judge in one state can act to put a federal law out of force for the entire country!
The United States Supreme Court and it alone should have the authority to put a federal statue out of force. That's concentrated constitutional review. Then nine justices, not one, chosen to act for the country would rule.
2
Forgetting for the moment that Mexico is paying for the wall, where is trump's promise for a "beautiful, so much better" replacement for the ACA?
4
Trump promised during his campaign to repeal and replace "Obamacare" with a less expensive and better healthcare plan.
We are still waiting....
3
If the mandate is what puts the A in ACA, but there is no mandate then it’s just CA. Seems pretty severable tp me, only who can afford it? This is what makes America so great. Once the corporations take over the whole world, heaven must be right behind them.
If this manages to take out the ACA, single-payer will follow.
1
@Rogan, right, then only the single top one percent can have access to medical care and the rest of us can die, leaving a perfect world.
1
Well, then I assume federal judges who strike down Trump's immigration executive orders are partisans, and the parties who file the lawsuits challenging those immigration orders are forum-shopping as well when picking a court. Your opinion piece did not provide any impartial analysis of the judge's ruling; your writing is also "partisan."
2
Why don’t you just put Vladimir Putin in charge of your health care? The Republicans like McConnell, Ryan and (gag) Trump have taken a sword to the health care system of your nation in an effort to give even more money away to the ultra-rich. If the poor and sick of the nation that need affordable health care do not understand that they are voting against their own self-interests by voting for Trump and Republicans in general then I suppose that they will get what they deserve.
If people care enough about something then they will eventually do something about it. So, let the Republicans take away health care. Let people suffer because they voted for Republicans. But remember all the consequences of that vote when you all vote in November 2020.
2
The Kavanaugh debacle demos that the Oligarchs running the GOP had their eye on the Supreme Court. A ruling against Obamacare will show unequivocally that the Oligarchs now run the Supreme Court.
7
This judge is a disgrace to the legal profession and to the bench. He is just a partisan who will bend and twist the law to get the result he wants. Not only is the ruling legally absurd, but it is horribly cruel. I have practiced law for many years, and this is the worst sort of perversion of our system of justice. This judge needs to be impeached and removed from the bench.
3
Let's just face it, being a citizen of any other first world country is healthier than being a American. That is American exceptionalism. Every industrialized country cares about it's citizens EXCEPT the USA.
2
The author doesn't understand or ignores that Roberts and the Supreme Court upheld the ACA under Congress' taxing power, not the Commerce Clause. Since the tax/penalty for not getting insurance is gone, that foundation is undermined. I support ACA, but the editorial is nonsense.
2
Now we'll have to endure the charlatan talking about what a great "victory" this is for the people when it's actually a stake in the heart of the GOP.
2
Yet another mile marker on our way to failed statehood. America is not quite "Great Again", but we are getting there.
1
Having just read Lawrence Wright's "God Save Texas: A Journey Into the Soul of the Lone Star State" - metaphorically and practically speaking, I can only reply to it and this spurious, soul less, all-too-representative ruling, "God save US all from Texas -
1
This is a tragedy! People might have to start taking responsibility for their own healthcare: paying their own healthcare costs; living without cigarettes/alcohol/recreational drugs; eschewing dare-devil sports; getting more exercise, watching their diets, eating less meat -- the list of terrible results is almost limitless!
Wake up...we are the only country that makes money on a persons misfortune, sickness. Where is the responsibility......country to its inhabitants......isn’t that what we pay taxes for.
3
Being born without a congenital condition, suffering a catastrophic accident, being the victim of a violent crime....
3
I have one question for anyone who wants to end the ACA instead of tweaking it to make it a better law. How do we get you to care about the health of all American's?
4
@Ed Mahala
How? -- By electing a different president.
1
Why is this a partisan ruling now but 6 years ago when it was approved 5-4 it wasn't? Could it be that it was in the democrats interest 6 years ago and partisanship only exists when things go in favor of the liberal left? Interesting isn't it?
2
This is why Conservatives pack the courts and Mitch McConnell tries to stuff courts with partisan judges like a Turkey.
Republicans can’t defeat us at the polls so they resort to shenanigans: they gerrymander districts, they reduce early voting and polling stations, they require id’s, they hire someone to destroy postal ballots, and if they still can’t defeat us they use lame duck sessions to reduce the power of incoming democrats (Wisconsin, Michigan, and Florida ballot initiative). Who does one appeal to? The courts have already been stuffed.
The “law and order candidate”, whose organization, campaign, family, administration have all been charged criminally leads a party that looks the other way when it comes to their own and their primary voting demographic: rich white men. Look at Senator Orrin Hatch.
The Republicans should rebrand their party as ‘by any means necessary’...
7
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."
- Anatole France
3
This judgment is a sickening, irresponsible partisan vendetta designed for one purpose only: to destroy a singular achievement of the Obama administration. These Texas right-wingers don't care how many people die or go bankrupt as long as their can stick it to the Dems. Another reason to toss the GOP out in 2020. They are not even close to working on behalf of the public good.
2
Reversal in five, four, three, two...
While I hope Farias is right, the column is a weak legal analysis.
2
Tanking stock market, corruption in every nook and cranny, and kick people off their health insurance. So much winning, GOP.
4
Once again, Republicans shout out in glee: We are NOT our brother's keeper. So don't mess with our cash flow. Our luxury is way more important than your family's health, and that's in our Bible.
Always remember: Rich white people don't have enough money, and poor minorities have too much. MAGA
3
I for one am happy about this ruling but not for the reason most people are.
For years a particular party campaigned on repealing this law. They convinced millions of Americans to vote to remove their only health insurance, access and pre existing guarantee. We all know how they motivated the base of the party to do so. They passed repeal bills 60 times hoping it would fail because they had no alternative plan after 8 years (see McCain vote).
Now the very real prospect of millions of white people risk their coverage no matter how bad it was along with pre existing protection. I say allow it happen then next time they’ll vote for their own best interest and not out of white spite.
“Vote for me and I’ll vote to get eliminate your health insurance!”
Talk about stupid meh...
2
Well I guess once Trump gets impeached he will need to find his own healthcare..after all Bone spurs and Melania's kidney troubles are pre-existing conditions.
4
Congrats Republicans.
The dog chased and caught the car.
Now what?
5
NYT please stop publishing pieces which undermine the argument that Trump's attacks on the judicial system are dangerous. You should not print a column with respected judge in quotes, or that says it was a partisan ruling that was shopped around, when you don't agree with the ruling. Argue the legal merits of the case. Leave the attacks on the impartiality and independence of the judiciary off the pages of your paper. Then we can hope those arguements stay in the disreputable corners of the internet, with all the other wacky conspiracies, where they belong.
1
How can we let politicians rule that if your child is sick and.uou can't pay you have to let them suffer and die?
Maybe we need to make politicans feel this type of fear.
1
O’Connor is auditionning for a seat on the Republican Supreme Court....
4
A partisan ruling.... much like the 9th circuit ruling that an executive order (dreamers) cannot be undone by another executive order? Like the Democrats trying to sabotage Kavanaugh? I am not suggesting that both sides do not do this. I am stating that they both do, and you cannot like it when it is in your favor.
The editorial goes on to talk about venue shopping...... that was taught by the liberals recently for sure.
2
This could be a good development in the direction of finally having a program that makes sense. The ACA is a mess, has been from day one. How many times can you fill in pot holes until you decided to tear up the road and repave with a more solid foundation?
24
@Midwest Josh
In real life, the ACA is covering 20 million more Americans than the previous system, and 30 million more than its only alternative today, Ryancare.
It also saves an additional 40,000 American lives each year (= almost half a million American lives saved a decade).
You can call that a "mess" if you want. I'd call that HUGE progress.
And if the GOP would know how and be interested in governing in a serious way, we'd never have had the current messy situation in the first place.
Finally, all that is needed to cover the last 20 million Americans who still don't have coverage now and to curb cost increases even more, is to add an additional $100 million subsidy (which can easily be done without adding to the deficit) to the current ACA foundation. That's ALL that is needed to finally have universal healthcare.
And all that is needed to reduce costs even more is to either add a public option, as Hillary and Pelosi want, or to activate the passage in the ACA that allows any state already today to install Medicare for all.
Simply declaring the ACA "unconstitutional", on the contrary, isn't just absurd, from the point of view of Constitutional law, it also means destroying the only real "foundation" that we have today - as well as hundreds of millions of American lives. And why would we EVER want the government to do something like that ... ?
Any ideas?
57
@Midwest Josh......The ACA is a mess, has been from day one. True, but the ACA mess was still an improvement on the much bigger mess we call our healthcare system. Further, the Republican Congress has done everything they can to make it even more of a mess and they intention whatever of trying to fix or improve on it with a better replacement.
38
@Midwest Josh ~ Yep. You're right. It's time for "Medicare for All" wherein we can catch up with the rest of the developed world. Good call.
43
It should be pointed out that this could be even worse for conservative hopes of killing ACA than even its first challenge. This argument will now rest on whether bills enacted on whole may be fully invalidated by the nullification of parts. That would open up a Pandora's box in legislation, whereby any amendment to any bill that is later contravened would be subject to destroying all the legislation to which it is attached. That's a recipe for chaos that would produce extreme thrashing of policy by subjecting any previous legislative acts to the current political landscape, no matter if their origins were either Trump or Obama at the time of passage.
1
Looks like Judge O'Connor has his eye on a seat in the SC.
3
Oh, so there are “Bush judges” and “Obama judges” then.
Trump was right.
5
Ethnic cleansing and no preexisting conditions coverage. Trade wars wiping out all investments. Kleptocracy, Russian style. By the time the Republicans are through, all we’ll have left are guns.
3
Why are the Republicans all so mean?
5
The ACA could not be perfect legislation as so many compromises were made that it look a Rubix's Cube before it is solved. But it did serve its purpose for many uninsured Americans. That is its success. Until America collectively wakes up and decides that its citizens is its most valuable commodity, rather than a greenback, we are going to have this same denial by the worshippers of gold in favor over people. Societies which have universal care have made a conscious decision that their peoples are its most valuable commodity. "We the people..." here is just cheap talk, especially by those who quote the phrase the most.
5
Apparently the editorial board thinks they are the legal experts. I’m sure they are big supporters of the “Ninth Circus” in California - we’ll known for their partisan rulings.
3
This is nothing short of politically motivated, judicially engineered and elitist sanctioned genocide of a population who is too ill, too old and too educationally disabled to navigate the complex system of receiving care - and this in my state of origin???? For shame, for shame
1
Those of you who think the Affordable Care Act, and specifically the individual mandate, was a prudent and patriotic piece of legislation, have never bothered to log into a state's health insurance "marketplace" website to see how outrageously priced the monthly premiums are, with a dearth of plan options, which the uninsured have been "forced" to buy, without legal recourse. Unless you've actually registered to shop for an ACA plan, you've no clue about the price gouging that's going on, the nose bleed deductibles that are embedded in each plan, the enormous yearly premium increases that rocket past national inflation rates, etc...you've no clue!
The people who were expected to fund Obamacare are exactly those who can't afford the marketplace healthcare premiums, but don't qualify for Medicaid. These people, who are mostly youngish and healthy, aren't the ones who should be burdened with the responsibility to cover those with preexisting medical conditions...or face an unaffordable IRS penalty fine. It should be the FOR-PROFIT HEALTH INSURERS, who are choking on obscene profits, compliments of federal law (i.e. ACA) and state insurance commissions that are approving yearly premium hikes without hesitation.
41
@Stone I pay my own premium for my husband and I and I think you have no idea how expensive insurance is. I feel lucky that I can afford the premiums and have good coverage. But the almost $20,000 for this extended coverage from my ex employer ( I retired) could be spent in ways to stimulate the economy instead I feel relieve that I do not have to worry about coverage and pre existing conditions.
Insurance works because healthy individuals pay. Thirty six years ago that is what my premiums and my husbands premiums did. Now we have aged and illness has crept into our lives, it will happen to you as well. We need to care for all Americans health coverage should be a right for everyone.
48
@kah. I've been self-employed for 35 years, and I know exactly how much current insurance premiums are, both in and out of the NY State health insurance marketplace. I use to be able to purchase insurance for my small business, covering four employees, for a fraction of what individual premiums are now, and with a low deductible.
I'd imagine that you're no older than I am...and certainly no wiser about the ins and outs of personally purchasing health insurance. You know what cost of health insurance is in Wisconsin...but, have no idea what similar insurance costs in New York State. Every state has its own health insurance product offering, both in the private and public marketplace...there's no national consistency.
The mandate "forces" a small subset of America to buy insurance, even if it's unaffordable. They don't even have the option of opting to purchase a catastrophic policy to cover the possibility of surgery and hospitalization...they HAVE to buy the entire spectrum of health insurance coverage.
4
@Stone
Do you honestly premiums will now fall?
11
Perhaps American lawmakers should define private health insurance as an extension of human trafficking. Who really has the right to profit off the illness of others?
2
I appreciate the reassurances but the fact that any judge made this ruling is frightening. (As someone else pointed out, Texas is not the greatest state in which to need medical care.) My husband had a heart attack last year. Without the ACA he would have died. He is self employed and we can only get Obamacare. There is no other option for us. After I became unemployed, we looked for health insurance but there was absolutely no way we could afford it. As is, we will be paying off his medical bills for several years. He is now considered high risk and needs to see his doctor regularly. So far, so good. But as our only breadwinner... And I haven't been able to find steady work... Yes, this is very frightening. As an aside, when I first read about this my first thought was, "It is illegal in Texas not to have car insurance. But it is unconstitutional to make people have health insurance? Guess I am too slow to grasp this one."
719
I second this. Am a self-employed single parent whose son just graduated from college this year. Before the ACA, my health insurance rates increased every quarter, and my deductible was so high ($12,000 per person) that the insurance was basically useless. ACA has allowed me to stay self-employed and retain better coverage that is much cheaper and more effective than what I had before.
In addition to mandates for car insurance if you drive, remember that anyone who decides to buy a house with a mortgage is mandated to purchase and maintain homeowners insurance. If we can mandate auto and homeowners insurance, we can mandate health insurance coverage, too.
Am so glad your husband is recovering physicially. No family should have to spend years recovering financially from a health emergency.
98
@Kathleen
" The law is an ass." from " Oliver Twist" by Charles Dickens.
17
@Kathleen - "Without the ACA he would have died."
That's the point Kathleen. If you have ACA you are not rich. Live Rich or Die.
Dying isn't a bug, it's a feature.
27
At this point, anything involving a lack of a constitutional basis or sleight of hand in order to abrogate the Affordable Care Act, or any other legislation enacted by the Obama administration should come as no surprise by now.
It's already a well known and established fact that this is the entire raison d'etre behind anything Donald Trump says or does, even though neither he or the Republicans have been able to come up with something better to replace it.
The fact that millions of American lives hang in the balance is of no consequence to him.
Which is something all Americans should all remember on Election Day in 2020 -- if not before.
2
If this moves up to the Supreme Court we will have the first showdown on the complete politicization of the judicial system in this country. The only good thing of striking down Obamacare as unconstitutional is that it will make clear that the only plausible alternative left is universal health care. American citizens will finally have to make their voices heard. With millions left without health insurance coverage we may see our own yellow vest protesters in the streets soon.
170
@tdb But what suffering, how many untreated illnesses and deaths will we incur while we attempt to force Republican in Congress, and this Republican president, to provide us with health insurance options that don't discriminate against pre-existing conditions? People had been playing roulette with illness and possible insurance cancellation for decades. We whispered about the terrors of having our insurance cancelled. And we have no more assurance now than we once did that we'll end up with a workable healthcare law.
1
If an auto insurance company was required to insure anyone who walked in the door just after after totaling their expensive new car, auto insurance would become unaffordable and be in the same absurd position as health “insurance.” People want and need health insurance and what we have now is not insurance, it’s a mess.
@ehillesum
Look. I see what you're saying but this isn't the same thing. New cars aren't "born" with pre-existing conditions that will deny them coverage. Are they?
Totaled cars can be put out of their misery with a tow to the junkyard.
What we have now is a mess. But people aren't cars.
2
Other than Mr. Trump, who is rarely in touch with reality, how can the GOP rejoice over this decision. Can they seriously believe that new healthcare legislation is even possible? It has not been possible with them in control of the entire Federal government. How in tarnation can anyone think that new healthcare legislation would pass a Democratic House & a GOP controlled Senate?
The answer is that they are not really that dumb. They do not really care about covering folks on the lower economic rungs of society, whom they often blame for their own circumstance, nor do they really care about people with pre-existing conditions.
Trump (through ignorance or indifference) loves the low cost plans which get folks coverage, which proves to be an illusion the first time they are actually sick; the GOP goes along. It is nothing more than a political ploy, a talking point to deceive the masses who love the low premiums while they are healthy, but when they get sick...
142
@Anne-Marie Hislop: "Other than Mr. Trump, who is rarely in touch with reality, how can the GOP rejoice over this decision."
It's a correct decision. Whether or not one wants to rejoice has nothing to do with it.
Now, onto "Medicare for all"! But wait until some folks find out what their Part B premiums will be. Oh well, never mind, they probably deserve to pay more.
@Anne-Marie Hislop
The key, of course, is "blame for their own circumstances".
Calvinism/Social Darwinism is alive and well in the mindsets of our oligarchs, even if they've long forgotten the underpinnings of that ethos. But they'll go on believing only the stupid or lazy are poor and that they earned all their wealth and stature through entirely their own brains and effort, because to believe otherwise calls their whole existence into question.
13
@Anne-Marie Hislop: I suspect that republican politicians who are not completely controlled by rightwing ideology are scared senseless that this decision will result in tens of millions losing their health insurance, and will result in a Democratic landslide in 2020.
When the ideologues in the republican party completely get their way, they end up shooting themselves politically. Think Kansas, a state with 25% registered democrats and 45% registered republicans and which just elected a democrat as governor.
9
Let's see: the Republicans who receive platinum healthcare paid for by taxpayers want to take affordable healthcare away from millions.
628
@Ann
Indeed.
Although it would of course fail in McConnell's chamber (which no longer deserves the title of Senate), the House should pass a bill that guarantees the same standard of healthcare for all Americans as members of Congress have.
Force Republicans to admit they would rather their constituents die and / or live in poverty than challenge the for-profit health care system that helps keep their campaign coffers awash in cash but does little in regards to actual care.
215
@Ann The metaphor that comes to mind is the Titanic. Our health care system has been taking on water for decades. The ACA changed its course for a while. Now Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump and their band of 'no to anything Obama,' all of whom have first class berths, have taken all the lifeboats and left the rest of us to drown! The sinking of the Titanic was a debacle and so is the loss of the ACA with no functional 'lifeboats' for the rest of us. A Single Payer system might save many of us if ONLY it can arrive in time!!
30
@Ann i think the real problem is that the "people" never had a chance to approve or disapprove. It was rammed through by Obama without merit. I am a republican and have no problem paying for my and my families healthcare, but have zero interest in paying for yours or anyone else's.
Healthcare is not a right. Read the constitution.
1
Where are all the Republican candidates who just last month promised to keep the pre-existing protections of Obamacare?
Voters will put up with a lot. Obviously. But they won't let politicians mess around with their health care.
If the courts don't fix this, voters will.
5
The law as a whole was upheld by the Supreme Court based on the taxing power. If you eliminate the tax, you eliminate the authority upon which its validity was based. Mr. Farias can argue all he wants about activist conservative judges but he elides the basic legal argument. This was always the a risk with the narrowness of Roberts' opinion and this time the court is unlikely to save ACA but it will essentially leave the decision to the Congress to remedy the problem or let the law die.
The GOP should be careful how hard they go after the ACA. It was a compromise solution between private and public insurance. If they continuously shoot down the compromise, that leaves people with the options of either a vastly deregulated private system or publicly run medicare-for-all. Recent polls have shown the vast majority of the populace prefers a medicare-for-all system, including over 50% of Republicans. You either bend or you break.
7
Despite the article's shaky reassurance that SCOTUS' Roberts will come to the rescue of the ACA, at the same time it quotes Roberts' assertion that it is not SCOTUS' job to protect people from their electoral decisions. Like it or not, Trump and the Republican plaintiffs here represent that electoral decision. Which doesn't bode well for the ACA's judicial fate now.
1
The partisanship here is from Mr. Farias. The five USSC Justices already ruled on the PPACA and found the Individual Mandate only constitutional under the Federal governments taxing power, a tax that effectively no longer exists. It was ruled then to not be covered by the Commerce Clause of the US Constitution. So those Justices might find a way to save it again and they might even overturn the courts precedence in it's previous ruling by deciding it is covered under the Commerce Clause. Wouldn't it be ironic if Justice Kavanaugh led the court to overturn that precedence after being lectured by Democratic Senators on the importance of NOT doing so.
1
Now let’s talk about unintended consequences - beyond the obvious disgrace of taking health care away from millions of people. I think somebody should question the constitutionality of forcing millions in this country to buy car insurance and penalizing them if they don’t have it. Repealing the checks and protections put in place by the ACA will almost certainly once again empower the health insurance industry to raise rates, deny coverage and reduce benefits. Of course that is clearly just exactly what the republican party wants.
15
Is that what government by the people for the people is? If so, I want no part of it.
The Republican party is out to demolish government for the people leaving nothing but rubble behind. They never supported social services willingly. If they wanted to provide better and more affordable health care they could have done it decades ago. They really feel no shame that the wealthiest nation has also the highest infant mortality rate of all other wealthy nations, even higher than some second world nations like Cuba.
17
What this editorial ignores is that Roberts found the ACA constitutional as an exercise of the taxing power, since he and the right in general increasingly reject the normal and historical interpretation of the Commerce Clause. The basis of Roberts’ decisive vote, thus, left an opening for some right-wing fanatic to go charging through. I hope Roberts finds a way to justify a reaffirmation of the ACA. It should really be a simple exercise. If congress doesn’t have the authority to regulate 17% of our economy which crosses all state lines we’re really in trouble. It’s almost as if the right-wing consciously wants to disassemble our country.
10
This ruling could be the start of a bipartisan agreement from congress. The consequences of the law, good and bad have occurred. Forcing people to buy insurance was nuanced into an expanded interpretation of a tax. Now that there is no tax, the law crumbled. It was the architects of the law that said the penalty/tax was required for the legislation to succeed. It is possible now, with current support for the goals of the ACA to be drawn up by bi-partisan lawmakers. It’s time to force congress to act, not to keep letting unelected judges decide the fate of a law only one side approved of. Remember, McCain who constantly called for repealing the law, while dying from cancer, voted to keep the law. Regardless of this ruling, one vote changed at the last second is all that kept it. Changes that both sides agree to, is the only safe way to protect its future.
2
I always sort of agreed with conservatives who complained about liberal judges "legislating" from the bench. Of course it did help to bring us civil rights, women's rights, rights for the handicapped, gay rights and worker protections. But that does not mean that it was "fundamentally" constitutional. So now those same "conservative" judges are legislating from the bench. I guess for them its OK.
3
We thought only Trump criticizes Judges and their rulings if it is not what he wants, but we knew all along that was not true and NY Times' criticism of the Judge and his ruling proves the point. If Obamacare is ultimately ruled unconstitutional, what is left as a legacy for Obama is Syrian massacre, Libyan debacle, opioid addiction and 10T dollar deficit. Everything else is wiped out. Obamacare is not a sound law to provide health care. All its mandates need to go. All the burden to cover pre-exiting condition must not be on insurance companies. It must be capped at a reasonable level and the balance covered from a pool specifically created for that purpose or completely covered from that pool. This will lead to protection for pre-existing condition and affordable coverage to rest of the population, and avoid bankruptcy for small insurers. Trump and the new Congress have a historic opportunity to pass a unique and bipartisan healthcare system that will stay forever.
1
@Alex E
You're confounding deficit and debt.
Obama inherited a record and STRUCTURAL $1.4 trillion deficit.
"Structural" means that no president can eliminate it overnight, even if he wouldn't sign any new spending bill into law.
After turning Bush's -8% GDP into a decade-long, steady GDP growth (which continues until today, as economical graphs show no Trump dent at all), and creating the longest period of job creation in decades, he also cut Bush's deficit by two thirds.
Then Trump and his GOP Congress passed an unpaid for, massive tax cuts for the wealthiest bills, which not only DOUBLES the deficit rather than cutting it, it also adds a whopping $1.5 trillion to the debt.
A deficit is the difference between what Congress spent in one year, and what it received in income during that same year.
The federal debt is the accumulation of all previous, not yet paid back deficits, you see?
As to your worries about insurance companies: the very notion of insurance means reimbursing people who get sick. If not, why would you buy insurance in the first place?
And of course Trump won't improve the bipartisan HC system called "Obamacare", because he was never interested in doing so in the first place. The only REAL opportunity to improve it will come when we elect a 60+ Dem majority in the Senate and a Democratic president (no matter how un-charismatic and centrist he/she may be).
9
They have had that “historic opportunity” for years and not once have they put forth a proposed replacement for the ACA. There is no reason to expect that will change. The truth is, what the republicans really want is to repeal the ACA and replace it with nothing.
6
I’m upset about this decision, but maybe it means I don’t have to pay federal income taxes. Maybe it’s unconstitutional to force me to pay that too.
Since I’m not wealthy, I pay a high percentage of my income to federal taxes. And you could argue that the rich derive more benefits with more influence on policies. At least now maybe I can opt out of paying.
29
I don't understand why the anti-tax right wing is forcing me to pay for mandatory ER treatment for uninsured and underinsured people. Seems to me that my taxes would go down and that things would be fairer if everyone was required to pay their own way, and the only way to do that (in the present system) is to require everyone to be insured.
How the ACA -- a classically regressive shifting of tax burdens from the affluent to poorer sectors of the working class -- got to be labelled as liberal is beyond me. It cuts taxes for the affluent who no longer have to pay for the uninsured lower middle class. Seems like just what McConnell and Trump ordered.
But I guess racism and hatred trumps even solidly reactionary policy.
18
@Jeoffrey
Exactly. And in addition to financial burder, the increased unnecessary usage of the ER system, by the "uninsured" hurts everyone.
So until the right wing shows proposes that we allow the ER to deny coverage and allow people to die in the streets, all I see are costs being shifted around on society. Albeit they are obscured, but still very costly to everyone.
2
@Jeoffrey You're absolutely right! Let's put a halt to forcing hospitals to provide "mandatory ER treatment for uninsured and underinsured people." Let everyone pay for their own healthcare -- with only those who truly cannot pay relying on Medicaid (i.e., not those who just want to avoid having to declare bankruptcy after spending their own money).
@Jeoffrey
If you got rid of the subsides for the ACA, then it would be fair and your taxes could go down.
Congress should pass a public option to medicare with pricing based on income and # family members. Corporations could convert to the public option with a rate similar to the way Social security is taxed. Healthcare workers can deduct and work off education loans by accepting the public option. Prices for all services would be posted and comparable - setting a standard for the whole industry.
Obamacare was the GOP Heritage plan - they used it against democrats to gain power....now it is time to go full medicare for all.
13
WE THE PEOPLE are going to see many attacks on America's Affordable care act, attacks on people seeking asylum at OUR borders, attacks on OUR Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and every other social good as long as Traitor Mitch McConnell controls OUR U.S. Senate and his spineless brethren line their own pockets instead of protecting 99.9% of us from the Robber Barons who bought them.
WE are going to see OUR national debt skyrocket, health care and housing costs go up, consumer prices - including food - go up to protect the "investments' of the 0.01% who have gotten control of OUR governments.
Unless, of course, WE THE PEOPLE demonstrate, march, contact OUR U.S. Senators and Representatives and fight with everything we have to hold things together until the Socially Conscious Women and men WE hire/elected in the midterms and those we will elect in 2020 can take over. Then WE need to watch them like hawks to make sure they are making laws that will help 99.9% of us. That is their job.
This ridiculous attempt to destroy the health care of millions of Americans will reach OUR U.S. Supreme Court. Roberts and his catholic/corporate fellow justices had better pay attention. WE THE PEOPLE will not stand for them helping the Robber Barons destroy OUR lives.
Not now. Not ever.
19
@njglea "You the people" are simply demanding more welfare from those who actually pay federal income taxes.
1
That's ridiculous, james. The financial elite 0.01% who profit from OUR health do not pay taxes. WE THE PEOPLE pay them to rob us right now. Time for it to end.
1
@james
Donald Trump doesn't pay income taxes, and if he does -- we've yet to see them.
Care to re-phrase what you've just said?
1
Funny, how the political party which came up with the idea of Obamacare (Heritage Foundation, platform fro GOP through at least the McCain campaign), has been spending all this time trying to kill it. The proposed the idea of subsidies and private insurance, instead of socialized government takeover of heath care, as they put it.
While Obamacare is no bargain, if were not for a subsidy I would be paying $900 a month for a bronze HSA high deductible insurance, with a $6500 out of pocket, before it kicks in. Why? Because I am 63. $150 a month seems much better than $900.While I do not have pre-existing conditions; it certainly help, as well as no more life time caps.
Also, funny how the same GOP cares about the womb, but not what happens afterwards. Things like the death penalty, taking food from the poor, putting illegal migrants into detention camps (two kids dead, more to follow), making the sick work for Medicaid, making the disabled work for food stamps. And, they do thing in the name of Christ.
In the end, many of these people will be heading to a very warm after life. Hypocrites all, and why the only way these people can stay in power is to create a one party state by gerrymandering, voter suppression and stealing power from governors.
41
@Nick Metrowsky The Heritage Foundations aim was to block and prevent better and more effective democratic health care, socialized health care, really cutting costs from near 20% of GDP down to some 10% of GDP and covering almost all people.
When will Americans ever learn? As a dual citizen temporarily back in the U.S., I look forward to returning to Europe where everyone has "access" to a doctor and health care services. Don't confuse this with the "access" here in the States which can potentially bankrupt you and help pay for the lavish lifestyles of the top 10% (doctors, dentists, etc.).
I feel sorry for Americans. There are plenty of other countries (Cuba for example) that operate health care systems far less expensively and (more) effectively than the U.S. Too bad you are all so blind that you simply cannot see.
39
@mrfreeze6 Given the horror of American healthcare, it is probably better for those who don't like it to get their healthcare in Cuba -- joining the flock of similarly-thinking people flooding into Cuba for their healthcare.
1
@mrfreeze6
I just hope that it will be the last evil deed of this disgraced semblance of a human being and his serves in Texas, leaving 52 million people without ACA and in a absolute limbo as a twisted New Year present.
Great job Texas judge, fortunately will not last!
In January the new democratic congress will be in power to overturn this atrocious subversion of the law.
Let's call it the last poisonous gasp of the dying, defunct corpses of GOP.
ENOUGH!!!
2
Another day, another worry heaped upon our already overburdened hearts and minds. What is it with the awful Republican Party? Trump applauding people losing their health insurance? Waving away the death of an asylum seeking child? Off to Florida for a nice long golfing vacation? Merry Christmas. Thanks donald.
43
@Lisa Murphy
Our for-profit healthcare system no longer exists for the benefit of a healthy country. It is now being intentionally used to impoverish the middle class. This is a major GOP platform that they don't talk about. They are however, quite proud of the results.
8
Now imagine this being appealed in a court headed by one of Mitch McConnell’s judges...
16
Could this be an example of an "activist Judge?" You know, the ones the republicans have always screamed about?
25
The sick sad thing is the Trump supporters I work with will probably hail this as some great victory even if their college age kids get kicked off their insurance. It's a "promises kept" thing and they will ignore the "replace with something better, cheaper and won't leave anyone out" part. Trump found a big distraction finally from his crime and treason woes. I hope he figures out that it was a dire mistake but I know Trump better.
Prediction. In 2019 the new Democratic congress will come up with a Medicare-for-all type proposal that will be popular but the "president" will try to bargain with passing it if the dozens of investigations into the Trump criminality and treason issues get dropped. Would Donald J Trump hold millions of people's healthcare hostage to save his lying criminal neck? In a NY minute. He has no bottom or moral core. There is no conscience to kick in. Congratulations Trump supporters you are finally going to feel what a Trump economy is really like and get good idea how he bankrupted casinos over and over again.
18
"Trump lawyers just killed healthcare" should be plastered from sea to sea. Surely this is a PR bonanza for the Democrats? No sooner the midterms over, when Trump reinforces their slogan. Note that Donald has just *demanded* that Nancy Pelosi fix this -- the clue to how damaging it'll be to Trump. So today, the ludicrous Marie-Antoinette greed of Ivanka & Company is headline news. This is an excellent story to accompany it.
12
@Carling It was already a bonanza for those who want someone else to pay for their healthcare....
@Carling
Yes this is the story...
https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-inc-podcast-trumps-inauguration-paid-trumps-company-with-ivanka-in-the-middle
And also this should be interesting...
The Steele Dossier: A Retrospective
https://www.lawfareblog.com/steele-dossier-retrospective
1
The Republicans constantly bellyache about liberal judges and justices legislating from the bench. Here is a ruling which clearly is the pot calling the kettle black. I would expect this will be promptly reversed.
7
Seems you are confirming the comment by Trump that the 9th Circuit Courts are politically motivated, and contrary to Roberts that Federal Judges are all impartial. Make up your mind. Lawyers know which Judge and which Circuit to chose if possible The editorial board's views depend on whose ox is being gored. The ridiculous ruling of the liberal Judges on immigration and other executive matters seeking to bind the whole country are applauded while this one is not. You are Hypocritical. It is the opinion of one Judge in the 5th Circuit. Your posturing of the Supreme Court with the 4 liberals in lockstep is realistic. Again more reality by Trump. It is about time someone reminded the lower Judiciary of their limited power. Reminds me of an old law school case lesson on conflict of laws. Can the Isle of Tobago bind the whole world? Can the ruling of a District Court Judge bind the entire country? Not in a rational society.
2
And, can a man baby be president.....i guess that’s a ......YES
As judges attempt to throw out A.C.A. and eventually Trump, the public reaction will be eerily similar.
1
Not again! Does this never stop?
7
I’m sure Reed O’Connor has a nice health insurance policy provided by Texas. He doesn’t have to care about my healthcare here in Florida. I will never understand people so filled with self righteous hatred that they trample over their fellow man.
20
@Tedsams His health insurance--guaranteed, platinum level, and affordable--comes from his employer, the federal government, not from the state of Texas. Otherwise, I agree with you.
Republicans. They're why we can't have nice things.
12
I hope Mr. Farias isn't whistling past the grave yard.
So does this mean Trump won't talk about 'Obama' judges in the future when the shoe is on the other foot or will he put his foot in his mouth as usual?
3
Wow - a "partisan judge" - who'd think that was possible?
There is nothing constitutional about forcing private citizens to pay money to corporations in business to make a profit.
ACA is blackmail enforced with the power of the government. Liberals have no problem with lies as long as it's a liberal who is lying. Remember the lie that you can keep your plan and your doctor?
3
Does your state mandate car insurance? Do you pay FICA taxes for your Medicare and Social Security? Hello! Anyone home? No?
1
@Aristotle Gluteus Maximus, Please start thinking with your Aristotle instead of your gluteus maximus. The idea of the individual mandate was a Heritage Foundation idea from the 1990's. I remember lots of conservatives reminding us how we need to "take personal responsibility" when it comes to our health care needs by paying into a system that would cover everyone. Now, all of that rhetoric has degenerated into comments like yours. How truly sad.
4
@Aristotle Gluteus Maximus
“We’re going to have insurance for everybody,” Trump said in press conference Jan. 11. “We’re going to have a healthcare that is far less expensive and far better.”
Who's the liar?
1
37] Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. [38] This is the first and great commandment. [39] And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. [40] Except in healthcare; thou shalt deny thy neighbor treatment at all costs. [41] And thou shalt love the dream of money more than thy neighbor or thy God.
7
Yes, Mr. Roberts, there are such things as Bush judges and Obama judges and Reagan judges. The one observation that our dimwit or a president got right!
1
Weak arguments matter little when you’re trying to distract the news cycle from a criminal presidency.
3
The sick sad thing is the Trump supporters I work with will probably hail this as some great victory even if their college age kids get kicked off their insurance. It's a "promises kept" thing and they will ignore the "replace with something better, cheaper and won't leave anyone out" part. Trump found a big distraction finally from his crime and treason woes. I hope he figures out that it was a dire mistake but I know Trump better.
Prediction. In 2019 the new Democratic congress will come up with a Medicare-for-all type proposal that will be popular but the "president" will try to bargain with passing it if the dozens of investigations into the Trump criminality and treason issues get dropped. Would Donald J Trump hold millions of people's healthcare hostage to save his lying criminal neck? In a NY minute. He has no bottom or moral core. There is no conscience to kick in. Congratulations Trump supporters you are finally going to feel what a Trump economy is really like and get good idea how he bankrupted casinos over and over again....
5
There is no limit to the cruelty of the republican Party and its selfish ideologues.
11
Fine, the ACA, aka Obamacare, was a half-hearted attempt at bringing healtcare costs within the budget ot most people, instead of instituting a national healtcare system. Obama knew he couldn't get that passed, needed to have something that still guaranteed the Health Insurance Business a profit, and got a lot more people covered. The repubs' donors don't want anything to do with paying for the masses' healthcare, much less food for the poor children, old people, sick people, disabled people......they don't want to be bothered, get it? We supply them with educated workers, transportation systems, food, everything, but we're just worker bees to them. And expendable. Any suffering is due solely to the fact we deserve what we get, because we're not rich, which also means we're probably dumb and lazy. That's the American Oligarchs creed; Us vs. Them. Trump supporters, do you really want to keep licking these people's boots?
9
"Texas, Wisconsin, Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and West Virginia."
Those are the culprits that filed the lawsuit.
8
@cherrylog754
most of those states rank low in the quality of life scales..
@cherrylog754 Thanks for this.
"GOP appointed Texas Judge strikes down all of ObamaCare"
Talk about a death panel...
The silver lining here is another nudge on the path to universal health care and another small nudge on the path toward a purple Texas.
1
This judge reminds me of one of those partisan judges out in San Fran who keeps striking down Trump's attempts at getting a handle on illegal immigration.
1
This is frightening. I have several pre-existing conditions, and I have multiple family members who have several pre-existing conditions as well. I am very worried that we will not be able to get health insurance if this decision is upheld by the courts. I hope the author is correct that this decision has no basis in law, and that partisanship on the Supreme Court will not lead to the ACA’s demise.
8
From a Supreme Court decision:
“The Affordable Care Act’s requirement that certain individuals pay a financial penalty for not obtaining health insurance may reasonably be characterized as a tax,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. “Because the Constitution permits such a tax, it is not our role to forbid it, or to pass upon its wisdom or fairness.”"
3
@Jordan Davies
So?
It seems to be very simple and actually means almost nothing. The ACA individual mandate was approved by the courts as a "tax". Congress made it not a "tax". So the individual mandate no longer is valid, and since it is not being enforced it effectively is obsolete. It will be interesting to see what the supreme court says, but congress should pass new and improved health care laws. Ones that would reduce the costs of the system and improve it, not just provide insurance to a small number of people.
1
@vulcanalex
Invalidating the entire ACA means almost nothing? The individual mandate is gone: how does that invalidate the entire law? As for the fairness of this, my taxes pay for emergency room visits by the uninsured, since ER's are required to treat them. Seems like thievery to me.
6
@vulcanalex
Passing such laws is EXACTLY what candidate Trump tod us he knew how to do, and would do even faster and better than the Democrats.
The first thing he did upon becoming president was to start supporting Ryancare, which not only increases costs but also destroys the healthcare of a whopping 30 million Americans.
The only ones who have a REAL, science-based solution here are the Democrats.
And of course, the individual mandate, invented by the conservative Heritage Foundation and signed into law by the 2012 GOP's presidential nominee in his home state long before the GOP decided to call it "Obamacare", isn't unconstitutional at all, and it's not because the Trump government decided to not implement the fee that the mandate itself became "obsolete".
Finally, the ACA doesn't just "provide insurance to a small number of people", in real life it insures 20 million more Americans than the previous system, and 30 million more than the only plan Republicans came up with since then.
Add a little bit more subsidies, and the last 20 million who still don't have health insurance will have it too. Problem solved.
Cost of such a solution? About $100 billion.
Unfortunately, instead of doing so, the GOP decided to pass a not paid for $1.5 trillion tax cut for the only citizens who really don't need it: the 1% wealthiest Americans ...
8
@vulcanalex, I'm glad that you agree with many of us "leftists" regarding a true overhaul of the health care system. Unfortunately, the solution is not something to be legislated first and instituted second. First, Americans must be persuaded that universal health care benefits everyone. They need to commit themselves to pay into a system from which everyone benefits. Only then will congress (along with the health care system) be able to create a better system. And, it's not as if better systems don't already exist. Fully-functioning, affordable systems exist today. The reality is, Americans simply don't believe they should pay for someone else which will always stand in the way of real reform.
5
A few months back I had a little heart flutter and wound up in the hospital for two nights, mostly for observation. There was no surgery involved but the bill came to $46,000. Medicare picked up the tab. The Republicans want to repeal even a tepid little program like Obamacare. Without healthcare, people suffer and die. They go bankrupt. The Republican Party used to be a moderate political party that was fully capable of governing. The radical present-day Republican Party should be disbanded. They have no interest in the individual welfare of Americans.
35
But the republicans are pro life. Even if it’s only before birth.
1
If 44 had of looked like his 43 predecessors The ACA would be the law of the land. The ACA would have been fined tuned and we could have moved on. States that are basket cases with little or no health care can't get past the name associated with the ACT. Even in life and death matters race Trumps everything. So Sad!
11
@Steven McCain What states don't have "health care"? Now some don't have say medicaid expansion, my state is one. I can assure you we have a lot of health care.
@vulcanalex If what you say is true we have nothing else to discuss. People must have stopped using emergency rooms for primary care.Mississippi and Louisiana highest infant mortality rates are just an illusion? If what you say is true end of discussion. I really have to stop listening to fake news.
3
Why do the oligarchs (cough GOP) want us dead? Between gun laws, health care, environmental deregulation, on and on...it seems they're trying to kill us... If nothing more, are we not their workers and buyers? Or is that obviated now by globalization...? And I guess with gerrymandering and fraud, our votes don't matter either...or will they...?
17
You can't have universal health care if you allow healthy people to opt out of it until they get sick.
You can't provide health insurance that's affordable if you only provide it to people who are sick.
The Republicans don't support a mandate because they don't support Universal coverage either private or public.
You can argue the point that Universal health care isn't required. Arguing the point that people with a pre-condition can't buy Health Insurance or people who become sick while insured can be dropped, the nasty, evil truth of the Republican position is exposed.
I think the Judge was right and the Republicans are evil.
3
@HL Exactly under the constitution universal health care is not required. What is better is universal good health thus care is not required so much.
Yeah, let people go bankrupt or die for lack of healthcare. We wouldn't want to be like those countries that have socialized medicine, now would we? The horror!
9
@Pa
The ACA was touted as coverage for all. What it ended up being was free healthcare for 10 million people, subsidized healthcare for about 8 million people, higher rates for millions of people, and millions more paying a penalty for not having insurance. Then there are the millions without insurance who get a waiver that don’t pay a penalty. This bill would never would have passed based on the results. If healthcare is now affordable, how come a majority of the people who don’t qualify for Medicaid don’t have insurance?
1
For all you conservative holy roller hard core Christian Bible waving Republican voters out there: ask yourself honestly, would Jesus support or oppose the ACA? As a non religious decent human being, would you support or oppose the ACA?
Unless you want something even more comprehensive, what is the motivation behind opposing the ACA or something similar for poor people above the Medicaid level?
If the ACA is repealed, do you think Trump has a plan for those people or will they just go without insurance?
Happy Holidays!
6
@Mickey Not that I am a Christian, but the ACA is government, not religion so Jesus would have no opinion on it. What he might support is charity to address the issue.
2
@vulcanalex
Jesus was living in an era where doctors, hospitals and nurses didn't exist, so of course he never said anything about how to pay them.
He did tell us to treat the least of us as we would treat God himself.
I don't see how you could ever interpret this, in the 21th century, as passing laws that destroy people's healthcare in order to allow insurance companies' CEOs to become even wealthier ... . It just doesn't make any sense.
Charity is only a Christian solution for basic human rights in states where the government is absent or entirely corrupt.
To believe that Jesus, who told us to love our neighbor as ourselves, would somehow nevertheless oppose the idea that we all pay a little bit in order to allow every American to be able to see a doctor when he's sick, is totally absurd.
@vulcanalex
organized support for the poor has the same result as charity. Many hospitals don't do much elective charity. County and Catholic hospitals do but thats not helpful to the millions that don't live near a charity hospital. ACA is also more support than outright charity.
And thi is going to get worse as McConnnel's judges take over federal courts and the Supreme Court over the next two years whether or not Trump is impeached. It is going to be McConnel's legal legacy. I am waiting for thr day whwn Medicaid, medicare and Social security will be ruled unconstitutional, labor unions will be deemed illegalfor federal employees and ....
6
"...and millions more who receive subsidized private insurance through the law’s online marketplaces..."
The whole problem with Obamacare is the word 'marketplaces.' When we Americans understand that our health is not a buy/sell commodity; when we control industries like Big Sugar; when we control the Advertising Bulldozer industry that promotes Big Sugar and therefore Cancer, we will have come a long way to controlling health care costs. Why did my very healthy wife's health care (for one 60-year-old woman) go from $715 to $914 per month in ONE YEAR under OBAMACARE? Because of the vote of one horrible Trump-hating John McCain and the idiotic Democratic Party. Trump is right. If one wishes to keep universal healthcare under a capitalist system, repeal Obamacare and let these monster 'insurance companies' (i.e. Usury Companies or Gouge Companies) bid themselves lower and lower to capture our (consumers') business. Or else just revert to Socialized Medicine and get business and lawyers out of healthcare.
3
@Labete Or better when we control ourselves, none of those things can make me do anything.
1
@Labete There's a much easier solution. Medicare for all - which is NOT socialized medicine.
Health care is not a commodity. We already know from decades of experiences that insurance companies do not bid themselves lower and lower to capture our business - quite the opposite. They control our health care because we don't have a choice to go without, and when we need it, we need it now, or we get sicker, we make others sick, or we die. Those who do go without run the danger of bankruptcy and losing their homes.
2
@Labete
If you want universal healthcare, you better learn to hate Trump too, as that was exactly what he promised to do, but instead of working with his own GOP Congress and obtaining a deal that would keep that promise, he threw his support behind Ryancare, a bill that would strongly increase costs and destroy the HC of a whopping 30 million Americans ... .
AT least McCain remained true to Trump's campaign promise by voting against Ryancare.
As to "the idiotic Democratic Party": the ACA covers 20 million more Americans, saves an additional 40,000 American lives each year, AND overall CURBS the cost increases that typically go with a private sector based health insurance system.
The day we let the adults controls DC again (= when we vote out the GOP and its Dirty Donald), they'll pass a - as always fully paid for and not deficit-increasing - bill that adds $100 billion in subsidies, and then everybody will have affordable HC.
And the day 80% of the American people start informing themselves about healthcare and then start voting, "socialized medicine" will immediately be signed into law ...
It's a mystery to me why the GOP establishment (and Trump's wacko fringe) is so set against broadening health care coverage.
I know they believe (naively, stupidly) in the power of omniscience of the open free market and they focus on what and whom they know, fearing "the others", but this seems so mean spirited.
Hatred, bigotry, and being terrified of socialism (which the ACA is NOT) can't explain it .... all. None of this makes any sense.
4
It is all about money. The very large increase in taxes for all to cover medical care for all to be exact. Some people, those without coverage, will win. Others, those with good coverage, will lose. CA projected they would have to double their yearly budget to do single payer. Inevitable price controls will crimp profits of many major companies in health care as well.
2
@Steve
But, we're not talking about single payer (yet), this is a first step of course. The extreme cost predictions of a single payer health care system must be measured against the improved efficiencies, savings to employers, the freedom to change jobs, to work more hours...
It's still expensive, but giving business (health care providers, insurers) a predictable time line (e.g., subtract 2 years from Medicare eligibility age each year) allows them to plan and position themselves for an inevitable future. Of course, they would need to believe that a policy adopted today would remain in effect for a sufficiently long time to make the process work - setting up an ACA then repealing an ACA does not give us much confidence.
3
Perfect timing.
After the elections, but hidden in the holidays and with Congress away from their desks and the press, this will provide cover for all those Republicans who pray nightly for the right to take from the very poor and give to the very rich.
You know, the Christian ones.
Texas is a strange place. It nurtures rich scions of the investor class like W. and it dances in delight when the poor have their faces ground into the dirt.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
17
Now everyone: tap your heels together and repeat, there's no such thing as Judge Kavanaugh.
2
Once again, the philosophy of the Trump administration seems to be beggar thy neighbor.
4
At some point lawmakers and citizens will have to understand and accept the reality that NO healthcare insurance scheme can work over time unless it has a sound actuarial base. Large numbers in the actuarial pool ......heathy and ill folks “swimming together” in that same large pool......is fundamental to covering both “pre-existing” and unexpected health events. There is a reason you cannot buy auto insurance after you wreck your car or home owners insurance while your house is on fire. A universal coverage plan such Medicare for all is the only sound solution for those dealing in reality.....which, unfortunately, is not the GOP or the widely profitable commercial insurance enterprise.
5
@Concerned MD Or better yet no such plan can be effective without a healthier population and more effective and thus less costly care. Medicare for all would bankrupt our country and force many providers not to accept it or quit. How about say California try it, and you a doctor take a 50% reduction in your income as a trial.
@vulcanalex
Not accurate and devoid of facts but not surprising. Most who have never spent time studying macroeconomics of healthcare delivery have limited understanding. With 3.1 trillion in US healthcare spending annually, one third of which is wasted on administrative frictional costs and unwarranted interventions driven by misaligned incentives, there is plenty of room to cover all, pay providers fairly and actually lower total cost. And, BTW, I worked for 40 years as a medical educator, practicing internist, volunteer provider to poorly insured and indigent populations and NEVER made the kind of money most assume all physicians do. There are other motivations in life for most of my colleagues in academia. Thanks
True, the latest ruling by a Republican federal judge has no basis in law. But what difference will that make when it gets to a Republican-majority Supreme Court? American jurisprudence is broken and will take decades to recover, if it ever does.
3
The mandate will be struck down, the rest of the law will remain. Per existing conditions can be covered. The cost spiral, already occurring, may get worse. The bulk of the coverage increases in the ACA came from Medicaid expansion. The ACA mandate was on weak ground to start with when the commerce clause was not cited as the basis for expansion.
1
@Steve
Most other industrialized nations have found a way to provide universal healthcare. Yes, there will be more taxes, perhaps a value added tax where we pay for healthcare a little at a time. In exchange we get rid of premiums, co-pays, and deductibles.
Businesses will no longer have to carry this burden, and wages ought to go up. Doctors may make less, but they will still make a very good living.
We the People ought to insist that our government respect the universal human right to healthcare.
Trump was right on one thing to my amazement. When he said there are Democratic judges. He forgot to mention there are Republican judges. Roberts is wrong when he says there are no Democrat or Republican judges.
4
it was partisan when it was enacted. fitting demise.
1
@jeff - it was partisan when it was enacted
Yes, it was a Republican plan that Democrats compromised on so that Republicans would vote to accept it as they said their would, but then reneged on their agreements.
10
What isn’t partisan these days. At least this legislation was aimed at helping people who need help, as opposed to almost everything thus administration is trying to do.
4
@jeff: No, it wasn't. Republicans got over one hundred of their amendments approved and there were numerous public hearings. If anything was partisan, it was the GOP's intransigence and numerous efforts to repeal a health care policy that originated with the conservative Heritage Foundation, solely because it was Obama who proposed it. And that judge's partisan ruling won't go anywhere. People want universal health care and if the ACA has flaws, they want them improved, not the whole ACA repealed. What do you propose instead of the ACA? Single payer? Because we cannot get back to the times before the ACA. If the GOP succeeds in doing that, it will be the end for them.
4
Note the GOP power backlash from midterms.
Also, note no “replacement “ healthcare fix.
And finally, note GOP, now Trump party was voted out. Trump properties deal in luxury enterprises. When sick and elderly what will they do?
The idea that the individual mandate would be unconstitutional is absurd.
So Republicans want to argue that you can force citizens to pay taxes in order to pay for roads, bridges, the military, an electricity grid, education, scientific research, the arts, the oil industry (which receives hundreds of billions in taxpayer money each year), national parks, etc., but NOT in order to pay for their own healthcare ... ?
They instead want to destroy a HC system that is saving an additional half a million American lives a decade, just because in their mind, using taxes to subsidize extremely wealthy oil companies is "constitutional", but using taxes to make sure that everybody buys health insurance rather than wanting others to pay for your healthcare and use the ER instead, would "limit the freedom" of those who prefer to take advantage of other people's money when it comes to their own healthcare ... ?
The GOP has truly become the Grand Amoral Party, GAP, the party led by Dirty Donald and that now only works to increase the gap between the 1% wealthiest citizens and the 99% as much as possible, and using the force of law to get us there.
And conservatives who still vote for the GAP and DD seem to want to protect the unborn life of children of rapists, but not the lives of children of decent, hard-working Americans, once they have a pre-existing condition (= the case for 130 million Americans).
They really lost their moral compass.
VOTE!
11
@Ana Luisa How foolish congress made it not a tax, so it is not a tax. Therefore not constitutional. And the ACA covers 30 million, a minority.
@vulcanalex
“If congress passes a law eliminating payroll taxes, will Social Security become unconstitutional? “
1
The author states with certitude that O'Connor's ruling is partisan and has "little basis I'm law," but offers zero legal analysis with no reference to ruling excerpts specifically. If you want partisanship, look no farther than how the law was passed and how Democrats have campaigned incessantly on it.
@Russ Wilson: Please read the article again as to the "basis in law" part. The ACA was passed after numerous hearings and opportunities for lawmakers to have input, which was granted in numerous amendments, and why should Democrats not campaign on affordable health care? That's a very important, if not the most important, plank in their platform.
1
So now a judge, whose healthcare is paid by taxpayer money, accepts totally irrational arguments made by GOP lawmakers, whose healthcare is also financed by taxes paid by ordinary citizens, in order to argue that ... using taxes to pay for the health insurance of not only judges and lawmakers but ALL Americans is ... "unconstitutional" ... ?
Where in the Constitution is it written that taxes that are used to pay the healthcare for elected officials are okay, but taxes used to pay for ordinary citizens' HC totally contrary to the "freedom" of those same ordinary citizens ... ?
Enough already with these Dirty Donald tactics.
He promised to repeal and replace Obamacare with his own plan, that would cover even more Americans, at even lower costs. THAT is what his own supporters voted for, and what America as a nation supports.
Time to come up with your plan NOW, Dirty Donald ... !
9
P.S. If this doesn't work, come up with something that does (for all), get creative, innovative and design a program that will be admired and copied by other countries. Or fix the couple of issues you find to be a problem in our present health care system. It's almost 2019, we can do this!
1
Every other industrialized nation has some form of universal healthcare. Most of them have far better results and they all spend far less money. (When Republicans say that the U.S. has the best care, what they mean is that if you have unlimited amounts of money to spend on healthcare, the U.S. is the best place to spend it. However for most people, the results of our system tanks near the bottom, not the top.)
The European country that pays the most per capita for healthcare still only pays 60% of what the U.S. pays, for better care.
Coincidently, in the U.S., government already pays for 60% of all healthcare spending.
This means that we could move to universal healthcare for essentially the same amount that government is already paying, which means that all individuals and businesses could stop paying premiums and get better care. That is what the math says about universal healthcare. The would be transition costs, but it would be a small investment to have savings for ever.
We are being fleeced by corporate health insurance companies. Healthcare is far too important to be left to those that put profits above the General Welfare.
Universal Healthcare is a necessary ingredient to a modern, healthy economy. We could have better care for 40% less money. Stop taking policy advice from corporate shareholders.
7
@McGloin
It would be amazing but there is a huge obstacle for which I cannot imagine a solution How to convince all Americans doctors to be paid a fraction of what they earn now? That is is you look at what European doctors earn. Young people are no longer interested in studying medicine and to further such studies in specialized fields, and that’s happening where education is free! People go into Medecine here because you can make a lot of money and also because you know you will be able to pay back prohibitive school loans.
1
Obamacare's mandate that people must buy health insurance from a private company or be penalized by the government is similar to Trump requiring all foreign diplomats to stay at his hotels and pay a higher price for the accommodations.
It's like the mafia extorting protection money from local business owners, or else. It's similar to Governor Huey Long taking mandatory deductions from state employee's paycheck to provide him with a private expense fund.
@Aristotle Gluteus Maximus: Nope, it's not. It's the same as requiring auto insurance for car owners. Not everyone has a car, but everyone has a body, so everyone must buy health insurance. If you don't want everyone to have to buy from a private company, that can be easily fixed by offering a public option, or go single payer. Or nationalize the health insurance and medical industry.
3
@Anna
But Obamacare doesn't have a public option, or single payer or a nationalized health insurance and medical industry.
As for the mandated car insurance, I'm not too happy about that either. I've paid insurance companies many thousands of dollars over the years for nothing. I get nothing in return because I'm a careful driver. Insurance is useful but it's also inherently exploitative. My insurance rates doubled with Geico when I moved to another state because the state insurance commission allows companies to charge higher rates, but my driving record stayed the same. It's less dangerous, less risky to drive in the state with high insurance rates than it is in the state with lower premiums. I am paying for other's negligence and I don't get a refund.
As a young cancer survivor, I literally worry more about bankrupting my family at this point than I do about dying. I am not exaggerating.
We have paid off all our medical debt from my two bouts of cancer but it took basically all of our savings (and we had very good jobs (paid all our taxes - whoa!) and were diligent savers).
My hospital seems as concerned as we are. It's fine for you to say, "don't panic" but we have lost so much sleep and fretted so much about this very scenario.
I was a very healthy, very active person, until I wasn't. Don't think it couldn't happen to you.
Frankly, it's the GOP's gleeful cruelty that I find hardest to stomach.
1342
@We Shall Overcomb The republicans want to take health care funding to pay for their tax cuts for corporations and the rich.
118
@We Shall Overcomb
A truly sad story, my prayers are with you for happy holidays and better health in 2019.
One question, did you have what most would call 'good' health insurance?
31
@We Shall Overcomb
It is the GOP's gleeful cruelty that is the worst part.
Especially Trump.
The only time he, or most elected Republicans look happy, is when they are harming someone else.
The joy on their faces as they make life harder for minorities, women and children.
If something is good for the GOP, you can be certain it is bad for you and your family.
145
In response to the district court's decision, Trump called upon Congress to enact a great health care law.
Ok--Medicare for all.
4
So we can be required to buy vehicle insurance because stuff happens to the best of drivers but not health insurance? Being young and healthy is a temporary condition that can and does abruptly change. Is health insurance a rigged overpriced game that rewards price gouging pharmaceutical companies and medical care specialty providers? The answer to that question is yes. But addressing the shell game that the entire health care system has become is beyond this country’s political will, so insurance is needed and required. Only the wealthy can afford to be without it as anyone with a health crisis and no insurance or insufficient insurance can attest.
3
Not just the wealthy are immune to this disastrous ruling. Members of Congress have their own healthcare provision, which is not affected by their own partisanship. Truly corrupt but more importantly, cruel.
2
What is it that conservatives and Republicans don't understand about people and their need for comprehensive and accessible health care services?
The arguments about federal government intrusion and overreach and states' rights doesn't cut it anymore. It's never been about these. It's always been about controlling and denying people, especially those with whom they disagree or can't stand.
The Republican heart is cold, calculating, if there's a heart at all.
2
The Republican's decision to weaponized the judiciary underscores what may be a fatal flaw in our Constitution. The Senate confirms judges, and last November Democratic senatorial candidates as a whole received millions more votes than Republicans, yet the Democratic Party lost 2 seats in the Senate. So, even if Democrats are able to win the Presidency and the Senate in 2020, Republican appointed judges will continue to act as a super-legislature to block progressive legislation from taking effect. Sure, that's undemocratic, but Republicans aren't a big fan of democracy when it means they don't get their way.
5
@Bret
I don't think that's necessarily undemocratic.
It's simply what happens when in a democracy only 50% of the people vote, and the minority invest in fake news 24/7 to fire up its base and get the vote out.
In a democracy, you only have a government FOR the people IF it's a government BY the people.
Each time people stay massively home, waiting for their ideal candidate to be on the ballot, it's a minority that will take over all the three branches of government...
A more logical reasoning would be that the 2017 tax law (that eliminated the penalty) was unconstitutional. That was not done via regular order, so does not have the same imprimatur as the ACA.
5
1. Studies show that before Obamacare, 40,000 Americans died each year ONLY because of lack of health insurance, and that those people are now among the 20 million people with healthcare that the ACA added to the number of those already covered under the previous system. That means that the new HC system is saving almost an additional HALF A MILLION American lives a decade.
2. Candidate Trump promised to come up with a HC plan that would repeal the ACA and replace it in such a way that even more people would be covered, and that cost increases would be curbed even more.
3. During the mid-terms, the citizens of two more red states just forced their government to finally adopt the ACA's expansion of Medicaid in their state too.
4. The individual mandate, just like the rest of the bill, has been invented by the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank, and signed into law and installed in Ms. by a Governor who would then become the GOP's 2012 presidential candidate.
5. It is entirely private sector based, contrary to the HC system that progressives want (single payer).
6. Trump's tax cuts for the wealthiest (his only major legislative achievement) doesn't merely represent a flip-flop on his promises concerning the deficit (instead of cutting it, it doubles it), it also destroys the HC of a whopping 13 million Americans, all while increasing costs for those who buy insurance.
7. Trump now supports Ryancare, which destroys the HC of 30 million Americans.
YOU LIED Trump!
18
GOP members including the president are rejoicing; however I don't think they have really thoughtthings through
They now have to answer for:
1) Seniors paying hundreds more for medications
2) Parents no longer being able to cover their college kids
3) Workers' healthcare premiums doubling thereby negating measely GOP tax cuts and dropping consumer spending at a time of weakening economic metrics
4) Workers with pre-existing ailments (which is virtually everyone over 45 ) losing health insurance coverage or paying signficantly more in premiums
5) Parents with sick kids (asthmatics, cancer, juvenile diabetes) paying more or worrying that their children won't ever be able to receive affordable healthcare coverage as adults
6) Rural hospitals in Obamacare red states and blue states losing much needed Medicaid funds and thus laying off rural workers
7) Women no longer receiving free yearly preventative services (mammograms and pap smears)
That list above represents plurality of the voting population....
And all these concerned, worried and angry voters will be either demanding answers and solutions in 2019 or taking retribution in 2020
8
The lifetime appointment of federal judges has generally been a good thing. That's how schools were desegregated, for instance.
However, the hyper-partisans appointed by the last two Republican Presidents are demonstrating the risks of it.
8
Mr. Farias thinks judges are partisan when they rule against you, but they are independent judges when they rule in your favor. Sadly, Mr.Trump and Mr. Farias are on the same page. Regardless of the outcome of this case through the appeals process, these political attacks on the judiciary are unworthy of presidents or editorial board members.
2
@dudley thompson
Logic and compassion supports one position. Which one would that be?
@Richard Ruble
You missed the point. The press attacks Trump for attacking Obama judges but it is ok for the press to attack judges as partisan. You can't have it both ways. Attacks on the judiciary undermine our democracy. I support health care coverage but I don't support political attacks on the judiciary.
1
Let's talk about the timing of this ruling, issued Mueller-like on a Friday evening, in an apparent effort to drown reports of the imperiled Trump administration. It like we've been hit back 10 times harder.
3
more to come from the federalist hacks appointed in the last two years. when it is all set and done it may be mcconnell and not trump who has damaged america more.
10
@jim: A lot of truth here. Trump is ridiculous, but what has been happening for the last two years is hardly the populist stuff he ranted about during his campaign -- it's more the familiar Republican agenda. Remember, Trump talked about a wonderful healthcare system where everyone would be covered, and it would all cost less. Of course it was an empty fantasy (unless he was talking about single payer) but it was his own fantasy, and had nothing to do with any actual proposals we have seen from the Republicans.
Any law that makes no common sense cannot be the law........ Girish Kotwal. Freedom to choose not to have an unaffordable Health care insurance did not deserve a penalty as a means for others to have health insurance. I applaud the ruling of the judge in Texas who outlawed the draconian mandate of Obamacare as unconstitutional. I hope universal health care can still be accomplished by bipartisan support but without taking away the freedom to choose not to have any health insurance. It will be inhumane for any American resident not to have optimal healthcare no matter whether the person has means to pay for it.
2
@Girish Kotwal
"Draconian mandate?" Really? Various laws force us to comply or purchase various services. Auto insurance, for one. Every dollar I have given to those robbers has been 100% profit. Not one claim in almost 60 years of driving.
How about taking away your right of decision and freedom via the draft? A tad more draconian, I would say.
1
@Girish Kotwal
So let's do away with the mandate (in some states) to buy car insurance and nationally to pay medicare and social security tax!
@Girish Kotwal
“If congress passes a law eliminating payroll taxes, will Social Security become unconstitutional? “
On the off-chance this ruling stands, it will ensure a sweeping victory in 2020 for DEMs as angry constituents demand access to quality, affordable health care; not some garbage, faux insurance scheme that the GOP pushes.
1
And the GOP continues to whine about Democrats appointing "activist judges" without a hint of embarrassment.
5
It’s not unconstitutional, the Supreme Court already upheld that. They had to go to Texas to even find a court where they would have standing. This isn’t over.
4
The very same people on Medicaid who voted for Trump will now blame Obama for losing their coverage. Health care costs will go up, hospitals will close. Putin laughs.
3
@hb
Yes, in rural Vermont where I live, a local hospital is on much better financial footing thanks to the ACA.
Now , if the ACA is repealed, they will go back to providing a higher ratio of uncompensated care.And ultimately, rural hospitals with close.
So people in rural areas of the country, will face longer ambulance travel for emergency care.
Exasperating. Yet, what better way to create a backlash that will squeeze a problem to a crisis and make single payer more necessary than ever even an attractive alternative to Trump's base? Yes, the healthcare battlefield will be littered with our corpses, our families will suffer from being untreated, and we will be in agony and tortured by ailments that didn't have to get to that point, if only medical attention could be affordable. Still, what an unnecessary use of sadism when it is so much easier to do good things for ourselves, our families, our neighbors, our children's future?
5
@Max & Max
"Exasperating. Yet, what better way to create a backlash that will squeeze a problem to a crisis and make single payer more necessary than ever even an attractive alternative to Trump's base? " Correct. Support the Democratic Socialists of America.
2
@Joyce Coutlakis
Americans seem to equate single payer with socialism. They see socialism as the government being the plantation owner and the citizen as the slave to the government. If slaves weren't happy under "plantationism," how can citizens be happy under socialism? Born into slavery and born into socialism are in their minds, equal devils. Liberal democracy means the people must be allowed to make mistakes. The can send their children to war, create immoral laws like segregation, and deprive themselves of health, education, and justice as long as they don't have to face the humiliation of having been wrong.
1
The desire by republican’s to cause pain and suffering to as many Americans as possible continues to define the party. It’s impossible to grasp the joy they get with each destructive ruling, law or mandate. The heartless, pathetic existence of so many republicans that desire to remove anything that is of benefit to so many will be the end of this morally corrupt party. In 2020 voters will continue the Blue Wave. The electorate is becoming younger, more diverse and certInly more progressive. They will vote out those causing a stain on the American fabric.
5
Republicans may be gleeful today, but this will be the last nail in the party’s coffin.
7
If a judge, any judge, decides the way you like, then s/he is a great judge. If not, that is a sign of doom.
The new, "progressive" way of thinking. Who is teaching this?
1
@boroka
Please acquaint yourself with the Latin phrase, "non sequitur."
“It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.”
Oh yes it is.
That is exactly, what your job is.
The founders of this nation would be incredulous that a Chief Justice could ever utter such a profoundly impeachable assertion.
2
Yes I agree with you it is a partisan decision. As is all of the ninth circuit decisions invalidating the various actions of the President. As my son a successful trial says all the judges today seem to think their values and beliefs are more important than established law. And we heard no cry from the New York Times when the ninth circuit district judges made decisions unsupported by precedent.
1
I think it is time for American citizens to form a union. A big one. It's obvious the political system has gone corporate and I don't recall consenting to my own destruction. Or that of the planet.
2
I’ll be curious to see how many Republican members of Congress, governors and state legislators call press conferences or issue statements praising this decision. I would say very few — the ones with an ounce of common sense.
But we do know who will be all over this like a cheap suit. He is sufficiently dumb enough to take credit for causing millions to be thrown to the health insurance wolves.
Glad to see it go away. You don't have the right to steal from your neighbor to pay for your healthcare. You are your responsibility. Churches and civic organizations can take care of those truly in need. The government should not be in the business of wealth redistribution. If you like socialism so much, move to a socialist country, stop trying to ruin America.
@Tom
Wow, so its ok for you to steal from the rest of us for your military spending, your corporate welfare, your banking slot machines? Why should people not have the right to affordable health care? Why should they not have the right to a living wage? Why should investors get outrageous returns at the expense of the people who acturally to the work to make their profits? Look at yourself before making comments about your neighbors.
@Tom Then please stop driving on the Interstate or any other road for that matter. I hope you didn’t send your kids to public schools. I’m sure you have a private company set up if your house catches fire. Libraries are clearly off limits. Also, ixnay on calling the police if your house gets broken into. The things the social government does are awful, aren’t they (sarcasm).
1
Churches can afford millions needed to provide cancer care for uninsured individuals? Or hundreds of thousands for ER care for uninsured shooting victims? Seriously?
Partisan? Sort of like the California judge who rule against Trump's stand on ILLLEGAL immigration despite the President's constitutional power to regulate immigration
1
@Al Kilo
Certainly, like separating children from their parents with no record of which child belongs to which parent or letting a child die from lack of water?
Trump’s base has supported him despite his endless lies...and I always thought that support would evaporate when the lies affected the base. However, the impact of those lies would take years to be felt: such as increased wealth gap, destruction of safety net, environmental degradation, ending consumer protection regulations, etc.
But if the Obamacare decision stands, the lying chickens have come home to roost. Coverage for preexisting conditions, subsidies, Medicaid expansion, all benefits Trump’s base and millions others rely on, will be gone. Premiums will actually skyrocket for those who rely on subsidies and Medicaid. All due to the lies of Trump and his GOP.
The Democratic attorneys general have defended the law; for the health of all Americans, including (and probably most importantly ), Trump’s base, let’s hope the defenders of the ACA prevail in their appeals. Let’s hope Trump’s supporters wake up, smell the coffee, and reject Trump’s Kool-aide.
3
Note to Democrats: Judicial activism is a bad thing.
1
Is the Texas logic not this: the ACA used to be constitutional when it had a "mandate" with tax bite, but was in 2017 rendered suddenly unconstitutional when the Republican Congress reduced that tax bite to 0%? If that is so, some questions which needs asking, and answering, are these: Did you Republicans intend to make the whole statute unconstitutional when, failing to pass a law to get rid of it, you managed simply to reduce a tax rate to 0%? In short, did you have any idea what you were doing? If you did not intend actually to make the statute unconstitutional, why did you not show up in the Texas court to defend the continuing constitutionality of the statute? You say you want to protect the millions with pre-existing conditions. What will you now do about it?
1
The conservative movement imagines that we can all simply pay for regular care and get only catastrophic insurance - and this is truly cheaper. But in fact much chronic care is paid for by government (most home health care for example). This ruling essentially means that Congress cannot try to solve problems - that can only act as an 18th century Congress.
It is nonsense.
1
There is no legal analysis in this opinion. It is just an opinion calling a judge names. WHY does zeroing out the individual mandate cause the law to fail? You are forcing readers to read the actual opinion instead of doing the work you should be doing: Supporting your opinions with fact-based legal analysis.
3
@janet
Under this same GOP logic, an expensive "entitlement", namely Social Security benefits could end, with a simple law passed to end FICA contributions. A quick way for the GOP to reduce the deficit.
“If congress passes a law eliminating payroll taxes, will Social Security become unconstitutional? “
That is the convoluted logic of this ruling from the Texas Judge.
1
I'd be interested to know how many Trump/GOP supporters agree with this ruling and could/do benefit from the ACA.
1
If Trump stands up before the American people and declares that he will magically come up with a better health insurance plan than the ACA other than government supported health insurance for all will anyone believe him? Will they believe anything he says?
Those that do are truly deluded beyond hope, and those that see beyond his lies will need to act as adults in the room.
2
Republicans practice what they accuse Democrats of doing: voting fraud exists by GOP laws making it more difficult for minorities & the poor to vote, activist judges exist when Republican-appointed jurists practice “motivated reasoning” that curiously agrees with GOP policies, welfare fraud exists in the huge give-aways the Republican Congress passes, favoring profitable corporations and the already wealthy.
And let’s not forget the lame duck shenanigans of GOP State legislatures passing last minute laws limiting the powers of newly elected Democratic governors, Mitch McConnell’s horrible, unethical treatment of Merrill Garland, and the corruption of the Trump administration that the GOP doesn’t even attempt to hide, anymore.
The Party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower has become the Party of Religious Fundamentalists, rural/working class racists and political grifters.
In Donald Trump’s word, “Sad”.
2
Is it that Republicans and Conservatives think only certain Americans should have the benefits of healthcare? Or is it if you can't pay for it all yourself you don't deserve care? Is it that the ACA was brought into being by a black President? Is it just for a win for Trump? Or is it that the portion of America that can't afford healthcare and remains sick, perhaps dying early in life of cancer or heart disease or in childbirth or of drug addiction is just plain easier for these GOP politicians to control and manipulate? Or does this ill health keep these folks from voting? Or, as I suspect, is it all of the above and perhaps much more.
4
Can anyone explain to me what conceivable argument there is that all of the ACA is inseverable from the mandate?
Guess he missed the Supreme Court ruling on Thursday.
Jefferson wrote in 1776 in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”.
How can it then be that US, a very wealthy country cannot now 242 year later provide free health care for all its citizens, when most other developed countries have found a way, even your neighbor to the north, Canada ?
Further, you in the US are even using a much higher percentage of GNP for your imperfect health care than other countries that it can be compared with. What a waste of resources.
I would assume, without knowing in details, that there are many of the about 45% that do not care to vote in elections in your country, that do not have general health care. Why do they not care ? and understand that voting may be the way to improve their lot. I think, it should be given so much higher priority and efforts by the democrats to increase the percentage of people voting, and thereby generating the future basis for having the power to make the necessary changes on health care for every citizen.
4
Well the healthcare issue is what the Democrats ran on in the 2018 midterm elections and they won control of the House. In 2016 Republicans used Hillary Clinton as a motivating factor to get out and vote. In 2020 the Democrats will use healthcare and they will win the White House.
2
This judge and these Republican controlled states have just hung an anvil around the neck of the Republican party. If upheld this law would take health insurance off about 22 million people (Medicaid expansion, exchange purchases, young adults on parent's insurance); remove protections against pre-existing conditions; and generally drive a truck through the entire health insurance market. Even if ultimately over turned the Democrats are going a major issue over the next 2 years.
6
When a judge struck down parts of President Trump's travel ban, conservatives and right-wing pundits became apoplectic at yet another example of judicial activism and overreach by a liberal judge. But in striking down all of the Affordable Care act, Judge O'Connor is simply following the Constitution and "originalist" legal theory, not his own political leanings. Right, got it. It's similar to when Republicans respect election results in their favor, but when they aren't, try to disenfranchise potential Democratic voters and nullify Democratic power in states like Wisconsin and Michigan.
With Justice Kavanaugh's appointment to the Supreme Court, we can expected the ACA to be invalidated. After all, did Thomas Jefferson have health insurance?
6
The somewhat comparisons between healthcare and auto insurance don't make sense unless you really believe in death panels. After all, when the actuarial table for an auto tells you it's time for that car to die, the car is crushed in the junkyard.
Do we really want that same standard for human beings?
2
If this is unconstitutional, than forcing us to purchase auto insurance, home insurance, liability insurance, etc. insurance is as well?
What is so terrible (and unconstitutional) about requiring us to have health insurance?
12
Obamacare doesn't work as well for American citizens as the Capitalist, free market system of corporate controlled healthcare. When huge top-down profit based organizations address your personal health issues for the sole purpose of enriching their officers and major stock holders you are bound to get better health care as an American citizen.
That is correct as long as the citizens in question are corporate citizens. The middle class is of course faced with a new and troubling choice: "Your money or your life". No, the incredible success of corporate owned healthcare is not how well it keeps us healthy. In that, it lags behind the first world democracies that have universally rejected it. Its magnificent success is in the efficient manner in which it has worked to impoverish the American middle class.
It is difficult to imagine any other reason for real American citizens to support this malevolent and unjust system of institutional theft. For the GOP to continually and underhandedly work to undermine Obamacare or any other form of decent and affordable health care, is undeniable proof that GOP allegiance is to powers other than American voters.
31
We are facing a long period of judicial re-interpretation of the Commerce Clause. While this extreme and overrreaching ruling is unlikely to get through the Supreme Court unscathed, it might end up providing a pathway for future lawsuits to restrict and hobble the Affordable Care Act. I assume that Medicare will remain constitutional (it's a tax-based program), but it may become impossible for Congress to sponsor a system like Obamacare in its present form. I wonder whether a tax-based "universal Medicare" might become the only real option.
11
The ACA was mandatory because it imposed a fine on those who chose not to buy health insurance policies. The fine was calculated to make ACA affordable by forcing young, healthy Americans to purchase polices they did not want, thereby offsetting the losses incurred by insurance companies forced by the act to to sell policies to sick people with existing conditions.
Chief Justice Roberts rescued the ACA during its first appearance before the Supreme Court by redefining the fine as a tax. The rationale was that the ACA was just a tax, not a fine designed to punish Americans for not purchasing a product they don’t want. Now that the tax is no longer applied, the earlier Supreme Court ruling that calling the fine a tax makes the ACA constitutional is no longer applicable.
America cannot provide heath care to those who need it the most unless Americans are willing to accept higher tax burdens that will reduce their standard of living. It requires real sacrifice, a sacrifice that Americans should be willing to make and might make if political parties refrained from making it a partisan issue.
11
I agree we need to make healthcare a public good, at the cost of higher taxes. But we also need to cut the cost of healthcare in half so our per capita healthcare costs align with those in other developed nations. Cutting the costs 50% — and ensuring ongoing cost control — must be part of the plan.
3
Congress cuts taxes all the time. It just passed a huge tax cut in the past year. Does that mean that all laws that involve spending taxpayer dollars are now invalid because tax cuts are “inseverable” from laws that spend tax dollars? Of course not. Congress may choose to reallocate tax dollars or, more likely when Republicans are in control, increase the deficit and debt by keeping spending the same. But Congress can do that. It has that authority. Judges do not.
The same applies to the law that reduced that individual mandate tax to $0 in the ACA. It’s a tax cut by Congress that left EVERYTHING ELSE in the ACA intact. Congress could have repealed the entire ACA. It did not. But this partisan hack in the federal court decided that the whole law is invalid because of, well, a tax cut. Talk about judicial activism! No wonder the Republicans shopped around for this judge. This should be a no-brainer for appellate courts.
18
The woman holding the "Why oh Why Are You Killing Me?" sign say's it all. What on earth is wrong with these Republican's? Are they terminally cruel or stupid? Don't they have friend's and family's? Don't they remember what health care used to be like before the ACA? If not, check it out. It was a complete nightmare for anyone not rich. I just want to shake these people and ask them, what the hell are you doing and why are you doing it, instead of strengthening the health of our country? Why are you lying to us? You spent the whole mid term campaign lying about protecting us and all those with pre existing condition's, while a lawsuit with your names on it was trying to kill the whole bill? It is the height of deception.
Could it be as simple as Obamas a black man's name is on it?
I'm baffled. I am also angry. Enough already! Join me please in throwing all these bum's out so they can see how democracy works.
48
Do you know what is not Unconstitutional?
Universal healthcare.
The 2012 decision upheld the ACA based on the fact that it imposed a tax to provide services. That is how government is supposed to function. Taxing and spending is in Article I of the Constitution.
Health Insurance is a key ingredient to productivity. People who are sick or worried about healthcare for their children are not as productive as those who are getting the care they need. And if people are walking around with no insurance, there is a far higher chance that they are going to get and spread communicable diseases, a further drag on productivity.
Also, being forced to provide and manage health insurance for employees is a major expense and distraction for businesses, who have no logical reason to be involved at all.
The ACA, designed by the Republican Heritage Foundation is falling apart because it tries to get corporate health insurers to actually provide healthcare instead of paying commissions to staff who could throw a sick person off of their plan as soon as they wanted something for the decades of premiums they paid. That is what they were doing before ACA, insurance companies are still more focused on profiting from the healthcare system than providing care.
Private insurers average 14% administrative overhead, and that doesn't include the teams of people that every provider has sprung through the myriad health plans. Medicare has less than 4% overhead.
12
@McGloin
The ACA also ALREADY allows any state who wants to to install Medicare for all on a state level.
Why isn't this happening?
Because contrary to what some progressives in this country tend to imagine, there is NOT yet enough public support for such a radical change in insurance system.
Only recently, about 60% of the American people started to support it - and that's precisely thanks to the foundation laid by the ACA.
But you need more than that in order to sign it into law.
That means that people like you and me still will have to roll up our sleeves for some more years to come before Medicare for all or another form of universal healthcare will have the broad support it needs, nationwide, in order for it to be signed into law in a democratic way...
In the meanwhile, let's not add to the GOP fake news and stick to the facts: the ACA is NOT falling apart AT ALL, and people still have one day to enroll and make sure that they have affordable health insurance for the year to come ... !
3
I'm not sure free enterprise and people's health should ever have been mixed together. Yes, there is some merit to profit based incentive to medical developments but who the heck can ever afford them?
I was just driving around with a rather famous person; an actor, who asked me what I paid for healthcare and when I told him he was shocked. Yes I pay a lot. Way too much. I do not make near what that actor makes but I don't qualify for subsides. My premium goes up another $80 next month. It has increased every year since I started. And I have the worst bronze plan with no subsides one can find.
Our healthcare system is untenable as long as the insurers are the key determiner. Them along with the state boards that have to weigh in on whether they are charging enough to keep the insurers solvent.
Any and every part of this healthcare system is untenable and the only bright light that this ruling by a Red State Obama hater may eventually lead to is a collapse of the system and the eventual ushering in of single payer with good reasonable care for all.
I don't need super fancy. I just need basic healthcare. It's way too expensive now and that drain takes away from many other parts of the economy. If it keeps up I will have to drop having it or it may break me. It's as simple as that y'all.
19
What do we have to worry about?
Didn't Trump promise to replace it with something better and cheaper and as president added that it would cover preexisting conditions.
Let the voters in Indiana, Missouri, and North Dakota who booted their Democrat senators out of office and those in places like Texas who feel that their Republican senators are doing a wonderful job enjoy the fruits of their decisions.
26
These days the first thing a doctor or hospital will ask you is what is your health care coverage and if you answer incorrectly forget about adequate health care. When Republicans fight good health care coverage they become the death panel they have accused Democrats of being. They say as Trump has done that they will find a better answer to our health care crisis than the ACA , Medicaid or even medicare but have come up with nothing.
Even now Americans are living shorter lives because ofsuch things as the opioid epidemic which afflicts the GOP base in large part. Should we be frightened at the prospect of an ACA overturn by a partisan Supreme Court that relies on the whims of Justice Roberts to make the right decision again? The ACA is flimsy reed, but it is the only reed millions have learned to depend upon and those that do are shaking in their boots. Medicare for all.
13
Republicans once again working day and night to destroy affordable healthcare for regular folks. How voters could still even consider them viable at this point is perplexing.
Democrats should be on the offensive here, attacking Trump mercilessly for his lack of concern for average Americans while serving as a lackey for the insurance industry. His tweet foolishly celebrates the assault on healthcare for millions of Americans, coverage for pre-existing conditions for millions more, and coverage for dependents up to age 26 - these provisions are strongly supported by an overwhelming majority of Americans. The daily deluge of corruption and illegalities involving Trump and his minions will take care of themselves, Dems should instead be focusing on raising awareness of the outrageous policy beliefs of the out-of-touch Republicans and their inept leader.
22
@Frank Roseavelt
Trump and his complicit Republicans do not care if the rest of us live or die (as long as enough of us are still left to work for them). They are fueled solely by lust for power, greed, revenge, and hatred. If that isn't clear to people by now, it never will be.
2
So car insurance must also be unconstitutional.
24
You can choose not to own a car. How many people choose not to own a body?
1
As a Hospital RN Case Manager working at a large hospital during the recession, I was sick going home day after day, because of all the people, patients, who had lost their healthcare insurance. I literally worked in the trenches. These people had lost their jobs, through no fault of their own, but they were still sick. They may have had “pre-existing conditions” but maybe not. Regardless, needing healthcare insurance and not being able to obtain it is something that everyone should be concerned with over this ruling.
52 million adults between the ages of 18-64 are predicted to be rejected for coverage by the Kaiser Foundation.
Not only pre-existing, but there may be the return of caps to coverage, a real push on this one. Young adults under age 26 would not be eligible under parent policies.
42 million people were without healthcare insurance before the ACA. Some of those caught in that situation were the reason I am not afraid to admit, I cried on that day in March, 2010 when President Obama signed the ACA legislation.
For the Republicans and non healthcare entities, including this president, to keep pushing for decimation of healthcare insurance, the ACA, is cruel. These are many of the very people our taxpayer money is funding their own healthcare insurance!
I am ashamed of Brad Schimel, a Wisconsin Attorney General, a representative of my home state, for introducing this lawsuit against the ACA. And I’m thrilled he lost his election last month.
47
The Republican shell game continues. They want to go backwards to thin the herd. While enriching the health insurers, they can trot out a new scheme which lowers rates for the healthiest among us with a skeletal coverage, allowing for no coverage for those who are in dire need. It is aimed at keeping their base voter in the game for 2020. Distracting them from the criminal activity and looting of the Treasury. I am willing to bet that they get an abortion case to the Court sometime before November 2020 also. Are there enough suckers to vote the Republicans back to office?
19
Republicans initiated this law suit when they were still infected by Obama Derangement Syndrome, and well before the 2018 election saw them do a 180, to run on, guess what - maintaining preexisting conditions and giving americans affordable care.
And the judge took long time to make a ruling.
Now, stripped form the propaganda and lies surrounding the years' long assault by Rs on the ACA, it now appears to be exactly what it is - a good way to spend tax dollars (as opposed to say, a plutocrat permanent tax cut)
2020 is right around the corner, just about when this convoluted ruling wends its way through the SC.
The people have spoken- even the low information Base - they like and need and want he ACA.
Rs now have a problem.
16
Thanks to McConnell et. al, the courts are being packed with reactionary judges like this one. Among all the other horrible legacies of this Republican Congress and Administration, this one will be especially damaging to justice in America.
22
The ACA never tackled head on the overwhelming issue of cost and racketeering by the Axis Of Evil: Hospitals, Doctors, Insurers and Pharma. It was a tortuous Rube-Goldberg piece of legislation, tarnished by lobbyists being centrally involved. If Obama had fought for Medicare For All, he would have been defeated because Congress cares more about blood money from the private sector than the lives of its constituents, but he would be spared the ignominy of seeing his signature legislation initiative collapse under its own weight.
Americans need to figure out whether you can build a delivery system around participants in it purely for greed and incentivized to over-bill. If the answer is yes, then don’t be telling them who then can and cannot take on as insured. If not (the answer the rest of the world arrived at) then remove these parasites once and for all or severely clip their wings.
2
I’m willing to bet that this death panel judge made up his mind to strike down the ACA as unconstitutional BEFORE the mid-term elections, but withheld his decision so as not to jeopardize republicans from keeping control of the Senate. Winning control of the House by democrats was already a forgone conclusion.
Judge Reed O’Connor, Trump, and republicans are like peas in a pod, no empathy for the wellness of America.
Many more KA-CHING’s for the greedy health insurance industry.
Let the DEATH PANELS begin so say Trump, McConnell, and Ryan.
21
One more reason for the rest of the world to laugh at us.
13
If the ACA and the individual mandate are “inseverable,” then invalidate the action that “severed” them. Invalidate the elimination of the penalty, not the ACA.
Did Congress intend to invalidate the ACA when it eliminated the penalty for not insuring? Clearly not, in fact it separately voted to reject overturning the ACA.
3
"...all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life..."
Republicans disagree. Life, they claim, is a privileged.
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The extremist Republicans may have won this battle, but it will ultimately lead them into major defeats, as the war for Democracy continues. Ultimately, we will have single payer healthcare in this country, and they know it. They, the greedy, selfish radical Republicans, know their days of holding onto power are numbered. That's why they are cheating, over reaching, and destroying progress such as the ACA; simply put, they are desperate. Sadly and tragically painful losses will occur - loss of life, health, and security as a result of the travesty committed by greedy hateful Trumpians - and those losses and tragedies will motivate the next huge wave coming in 2020. I believe we will have a better country EVENTUALLY. In the meantime it is awful watching what greed and avarice does to my fellow human beings.
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There may be a ray of hope in this madness. The passion with which Democrats (and for that matter the NYTimes) hold on the to ACA is because it's better than what we had.
The ACA was created to pay the difference between what was charged for health care in the market and what folks could actually afford to pay. The difference was made up in the ACA through federal subsidies. And this is what drives conservatives crazy.
They oppose any federal payment other than for Medicaid and even then you not only have to be very poor to qualify, but you also have to meet work requirements.
They don't have a public service work requirement for millionaires to get their tax cuts, but that's another story.
So the real choice down the road will be between a market system that leaves most people with inadequate overage or none and the Sanders proposal of Medicare for all.
How do you pay for this expanded Medicare? You start with shifting the subsidies we're already paying under the ACA to Medicare. Then, as with our basic payroll tax, we add a tax dedicated to health care.
As with existing Medicare those who wish can buy supplemental insurance to upgrade their service, but basically everyone would be covered.
Once that's in place we can tackle the rising costs of care and finally have a system comparable to the rest of the world's.
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