NEW ORLEANS (AP) A federal appeals court on Wednesday struck down Obamacares now-toothless requirement that Americans carry health insurance but sidestepped a ruling on the laws overall constitutionality. The decision means the law remains in effect for now.
The 2-1 ruling handed down by a panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans means the ultimate fate of the rest of the Affordable Care Act including such popular provisions as protections for those with pre-existing conditions, Medicaid expansion and the ability for children under the age of 26 to remain on their parents insurance remains unclear.
The panel agreed with Texas-based U.S. District Judge Reed OConnors 2018 finding that the laws insurance requirement, the so-called individual mandate, was rendered unconstitutional when Congress, in 2017, reduced a tax on people without insurance to zero.
The court reached no decision on the big issue how much of the Affordable Care Act must fall along with the insurance mandate.
It may still be that none of the ACA is severable from the individual mandate, even after this inquiry is concluded. It may be that all of the ACA is severable from the individual mandate. It may also be that some of the ACA is severable from the individual mandate, and some is not, Judge Jennifer Elrod wrote.
The decision sends the case back to a judge who already ruled once to throw out the entire ACA but with some guidance. OConnor has to be more specific about which parts of the law cant be separated from the mandate, and also must take into account Congress decision to leave the rest of the law essentially unchanged when it reduced the penalty for not having insurance to zero, Elrod wrote.
In dissent, Judge Carolyn Dineen King said her colleagues were prolonging uncertainty over the future of the healthcare sector. King would have found the mandate constitutional, although unenforceable, and would have left the rest of the law alone.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who is leading state efforts to defend the law, promised a quick appeal to the Supreme Court.
For now, the President got the gift he wanted uncertainty in the healthcare system and a pathway to repeal so that the healthcare that seniors, workers and families secured under the Affordable Care Act can be yanked from under them, Becerra said in a statement.
Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas, which spearheaded the lawsuit seeking to throw out the ACA, applauded the courts decision to declare the mandate unconstitutional.
As the courts opinion recognized, the only reason the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare in 2012 was Congress taxing power, and without the individual mandates penalty that justification crumbled, Paxton wrote. We look forward to the opportunity to further demonstrate that Congress made the individual mandate the centerpiece of Obamacare and the rest of the law cannot stand without it.
President Donald Trump also applauded the decision, calling it a win for all Americans.
A legal analyst who has followed the health law from its early days said the ruling seems to indicate that the lower court judge who struck the entire statute down as unconstitutional overreached.
The opinion suggests that Judge OConnor went too far in invalidating the entire statute, and that he should have considered what Congress intended in 2017 when it zeroed out the mandate penalty, said Tim Jost, a retired law professor at Washington and Lee University in Virginia. Jost supports the ACA.
The courts ruling ensures Obamacare will remain a political issue during the 2020 election campaign, giving Democrats a line of attack against Trump and congressional Republicans. With the health laws ultimate fate still in doubt, Democrats will argue that Republicans are trying to strip coverage away from 20 million Americans.
