A decision in the legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act brought by 20 states and the Trump administration is going to be handed down any minute now. Since Republicans shopped for the district and the judge most likely to rule in their favor, against the law, the case is likely to work its way up to the Supreme Court.
The Trump administration, rather than defending the law, joined with the states and even went further to argue specifically that protections for people with pre-existing medical conditions should be struck down. Since the administration is refusing to uphold the law, House Democrats are weighing using their new majority to intervene. They would join more than a dozen Democratic states who have intervened in support of the law.
According to Politico, they would have a vote on a resolution to take up the defense of the law soon after the next Congress is sworn in in January. That would both fulfill Democrats' promise to do everything in their power to save the law and its protections, and also force all those Republicans who swear they care about their constituents to put their votes where their mouths are. "A notable difference between us [Democrats] and them is that we actually want to protect these protections," a House Democratic leadership aide told Politico. "This would specifically authorize the House as a legal party in the lawsuit."
They have yet to determine which procedure they'll use. They could pass that resolution authorizing the House general counsel to intervene, or have a five-member group of House Democratic and Republican leadership called the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group order the counsel to take a position on the suit. This is significant because it's unilateral action the House could take. Mitch McConnell's Senate would have no power to prevent it.
There's the very outside chance that the "intensely political" Texas District Judge Reed O'Connor will react to the midterm results by making this problem go away for Republicans. He promised to issue a decision "as quickly" as he could—two months ago. He's likely been holding out on ruling pending the election, says Tim Jost, a professor emeritus at Washington and Lee University School of Law and an expert on the ACA. "Why hasn’t he ruled yet? […] I suspect that he is waiting until the election is over because the last thing Republican candidates need right now is another reminder that they are trying to get rid of preexisting-conditions protections."
