I am slightly surprised that a post hasn’t already come up about this.
Yesterday, the Trump DOJ took the extraordinary step of (mostly) siding with the conservative states in the latest attack on the Affordable Care Act. The crux of the argument that the administration is making is that since the Tax Cut and Jobs Act eliminated the ACA’s individual mandate to acquire health insurance (beginning in 2019), the ACA’s key insurance reforms - bans on preexisting conditions denials and guaranteed community rating - must also be struck down. Supporters of the move are comparing the DOJ’s actions to the Obama administration’s refusal to defend the Defense of Marriage Act.
Unprecedentedly, the argument is so transparently flimsy that three career DOJ attorneys asked to be removed from the government’s brief to the court shortly before it was filed. Lots of smart legal minds have already put out a bunch of think pieces about how insane of an action this is and how ludicrous the argument is, including lawyers who are avowed ACA haters. Check out this, this, and this.
IANAL, but look, after King v. Burwell, I no longer believe that any anti-ACA case can ever be made that will (a) be done in good faith and (b) have merit. I think this latest iteration may be even more baseless than King v. Burwell, if such a thing were possible. That said, I fully expect this case to wind up in SCOTUS at some point over the next year or two, because of course every absurd and stupid anti-ACA lawsuit MUST wind up in front of SCOTUS.
What’s amazing about this is that the Trump administration is now on the record DIRECTLY attacking the most universally popular parts of Obamacare in an election year. At a time when the public prefers Democratic approaches to healthcare policies by wide margins, and after the GOP just spent the better part of last year bullshitting the public about how their ACA replacement plans would preserve preexisting conditions protections, the difference between the two parties could not have possibly been brought more sharply into view.
What do you guys think will happen with this case? How will the administration’s actions impact the midterms?