A federal judge in Texas on Dec. 14 ruled the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional, due to a recent change in federal tax law.
A federal judge’s ruling declaring the entire Affordable Care Act invalid came under harsh attack Saturday from legal analysts who predicted higher courts will reject the rationale as a tortured effort to rewrite not just the law but congressional history.
The ruling in Texas came on the eve of Saturday’s deadline for Americans to sign up for coverage in the federal insurance exchange created by the ACA, more commonly called Obamacare. The judge did not issue any injunction in the case, meaning that in the short term, nothing will change in health-care services or insurance while the courts consider the issue.
The 55-page ruling late Friday from U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor found the law invalid on the basis of the political and legal history of a few key provisions. O’Connor decided that once Congress repealed the tax penalty that enforced a mandate that most Americans get health insurance, the whole law became invalid.
View the complete December 15 article by Devlin Barrett on The Washington Post website here.