Posted on 02/26/2018 9:51:33 PM PST by Innovative
A coalition of 20 U.S. states sued the federal government on Monday over Obamacare, claiming the law was no longer constitutional after the repeal last year of its requirement that people have health insurance or pay a fine.
Led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel, the lawsuit said that without the individual mandate, which was eliminated as part of the Republican tax law signed by President Donald Trump in December, Obamacare was unlawful.
"The U.S. Supreme Court already admitted that an individual mandate without a tax penalty is unconstitutional," Paxton said in a statement. "With no remaining legitimate basis for the law, it is time that Americans are finally free from the stranglehold of Obamacare, once and for all," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton would make a great replacement for Jeff Sessions. He is on the ball.
If the mess over Obamacare doesn’t illustrate the need for 17th Amendment repeal, I don’t know what does.
By January of 2011, twenty-seven states challenged the constitutionality of Obamacare in federal court. Twenty-two senators from those states had voted for the law. In seven of the twenty-seven states, both senators voted for Obamacare! Scotus went political; it openly sought to “save” Obamacare rather than judge its merits. GOP candidates always ran on its repeal. Candidate & President Trump opposed it. Today, more states are back in court to be rid of it.
In a senate of the states, Obamacare wouldn’t have made it to the floor of the senate.
Obamacare caused untold misery among the middle-class who were too rich to qualify for subsidies, yet too poor to afford it.
Since the mandate was a tax they were able to repeal it with a simple majority. It doesn't go into effect until 2019.
#8 - devastating post.
OK, I got a look at the text of the bill. The mandate, i.e. the requirement to have a policy that meets the Obiecare standards is still in force. What they did was change the amount of the “tax” (fine) for not having one to zero. The effect of that is you’re required to have the policy, but the ability to opt out by paying the “tax” is gone. What’s left is a mandate (requirement) to buy insurance that you can’t buy your way out of. That’s an unconstitutional mandate, so that’s apparently what they’re arguing.
The dicta in the original Supreme Court decision addressed that issue and concluded that the ability to avoid the insurance requirement by paying the fine was the only thing preventing it from being unconstitutional, so I think they have a good argument.
This is a long way of saying the mandate wasn’t repealed, they just set the amount of the fine to zero. I wonder if they knew they were eliminating the only thing saving the mandate by doing so? I suspect: yes.
I like the fact that they picked a district with a rational court of appeals.
The lying, EXEMPT, lying, GOP promised
AND KEPT THEMSELVES EXEMPT.
Every one should be removed.
Sue??
Why not notify Fedzilla to FOAD, per the 9th & 10th A.? Talk about a waste of time, taxpayer $$ and political will.
Guess those died in the 60’s w/ the Civil Rights Acts too....
“...but I am sure you would have been taken care of some other way.”
How would that happen?
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I’m probably one of the few that actually benefited greatly from Obamacare. But, over time it did morph into something truly hideous. I would rather have stayed crutch-bound than to have doomed the entire nation to what it has already evolved into.
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Morphed? It was illegal/unconstitutional from the get-go.
It was *SO* bad, Zero had to defer the full implementation numerous times; as well as give ‘exemptions’ to his donors
Bttt.
5.56mm
Irt your 25. You are right. They did zero it out. Seems to me it is some what safe for the time being in that they would have to reverse the process to start taxing again.
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I wonder, if it’s totally repealed, if my company will offer to put our working spouses back on our health insurance plan. Cause it’s been costing us $200 extra per month since that option was taken away.
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Why is that an ‘issue’ for your EMPLOYER?
Maybe Congress should *FIX IT*, so that it’s the responsibility/purview of the service USER(s)....YOU.
You know, *YOU* should be able to have the same (pre)tax break(s) biz does, to procure insurance for you and yours.
Course, that would require the (R)N(C) to do something for the benefit The People (and fully logical), in the Cmbr of Comm. So, I guess, you can figure where THAT is going...
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If the mess over Obamacare doesn’t illustrate the need for 17th Amendment repeal, I don’t know what does.
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IMO, it screams more to the need to repeal the illegal Fed. Reserve Act and restoring TRUE monetary policy to govt.
Hard to spend when you can’t just magically create more 0’s on the ledger.
Lastly, the easiest way, I can think, of farking the 17th is very simple: Every State must pay it’s share, based on the last census data, of each Federal budget.
EG: If FL accounts for 10% of the Citizenry, it must pay 10% of the Fed. budget.
Then we’ll see how much each person enjoys paying their ‘fair share’ for the other 56 States.
I honestly don’t remember the rationale behind it but the notice did state the change was due to the ACA. Of course, many of the upper level management’s spouses don’t work outside the home so they got to stay on, but those with working spouses, they were forced to take coverage through their own employer if offered, no matter how crappy or expensive a plan it might be.
Suing implies that this will go to the same courts which upheld CommieCare. Unless Trump has appointed dozens of conservatives to replace leftists, including Roberts on the USSC, I don’t see the point.
I can still remember how cheap basic health insurance was, well before Obamacare.
“If the mess over Obamacare doesn’t illustrate the need for 17th Amendment repeal, I don’t know what does.”
Zell Miller’s excellent book, “A National Party No More: The Conscience of a Conservative Democrat,” makes the case that both the 16th and 17th Amendments should be repealed. Every intrusion of the Federal Government over the last 100 years can be traced to those two Amendments.
Agree. The 1910s was a horrible decade.
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