Texas judge rules Affordable Care Act unconstitutional

Dec. 15 (UPI) — A federal judge in Fort Worth, Texas, ruled Friday that the Affordable Care Act, specifically its individual mandate requiring Americans to get health insurance, is unconstitutional.

District Court Judge Reed O’Connor’s decision paves the way for an appeal, at first likely at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, but then possibly to the Supreme Court, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.

O’Connor wrote that the “individual mandate is unconstitutional” and is “inseverable” from the rest of the Affordable Care Act, the sweeping 2010 healthcare law commonly called Obamacare.

He determined that because, O’Connor wrote, the individual mandate “can no longer be sustained as an exercise of Congress’s tax power,” according to The New York Times.

Congressional Republicans essentially nulled the individual mandate last year in their tax reform legislation, setting the financial penalty for failing to acquire health insurance at zero dollars. When the Supreme Court upheld the ACA in 2012, justices determined the individual mandate was constitutional because it was covered under Congress’ power to levy taxes.

The 2012 decision is now irreconcilable with the individual mandate’s current non-existent financial penalty, plaintiffs that include 20 states argue. And because the individual mandate is “inseverable” from the rest of the Affordable Care Act, O’Connor wrote, the law cannot exist without it. He called it the “keystone” of the law.

“Based on unambiguous text, Supreme Court guidance, and historical context, the Court finds ‘it is evident that the Legislature would not have enacted’ the ACA ‘independently of’ the Individual Mandate,” O’Connor wrote.

Other states, including California, plan to challenge O’Connor’s decision in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Times reported.

President Donald Trump praised the decision Friday night on Twitter.

“As I predicted all along, Obamacare has been struck down as an UNCONSTITUTIONAL disaster! Now Congress must pass a STRONG law that provides GREAT healthcare and protects pre-existing conditions,” he said.