US appeals court rules Obamacare individual mandate’ unconstitutional but leaves law intact for now

FAN Editor

Participants hold signs in New York, NY while protesting efforts to repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act on July 29, 2017.

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A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled that the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate provision was unconstitutional but punted on deciding whether the rest of the landmark health-care law should be tossed out. 

The court is ordering a lower court judge to reconsider whether ACA, more commonly known as Obamacare, should remain intact.

“The individual mandate is unconstitutional because it can no longer be read as a tax, and there is no other constitutional provision that justifies this exercise of congressional power,” the ruling stated. “On the severability question, we remand to the district court to provide additional analysis of the provisions of the ACA as they currently exist.”

Texas and other Republican-led states brought the suit, which was defended by Democratic-led states and the House of Representatives. The court heard arguments in July.

The suit alleged that the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate was unlawful under the federal government’s taxing powers after Congress reduced the penalty for not having insurance to $0 in 2017. Texas argued that therefore the ACA, more commonly known as Obamacare, must be scrapped.

Democrats said the lawsuit was just the latest Republican legal assault on Americans’ health care. Ending Obamacare has been a long-held goal of President Donald Trump and fellow Republicans. Trump unsuccessfully rallied enough Republicans to repeal and replace the health law in 2017.

U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor of the Northern District of Texas ruled in December that the entire health law was unconstitutional because the individual mandate penalty was essentially eliminated. A coalition of Democratic state attorneys general, led by California’s Xavier Becerra, appealed the lower court ruling.

Health policy analysts expected the issue to go all the way to the Supreme Court, which upheld Obamacare in a narrowly divided 2012 ruling. The decision Wednesday decreases the chances of a Supreme Court decision before the 2020 elections. 

This is breaking news. Check back for updates.

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