Twenty red states have nothing better to do with taxpayer money than sue over Obamacare—again

Daily Kos Staff

Tuesday February 27, 2018 · 11:10 AM PST

2018/02/27 · 11:10

WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 28: Anti-Obamacare protesters wear masks of U.S. President Barack Obama and Grim Reaper as they demonstrate in front of the U.S. Supreme Court June 28, 2012 in Washington, DC. The Supreme Court is expected to hand down its ruling on the Affordable Healthcare Act this morning. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images) — They are all, still, that guy.

Because it will always be 2010 for Republicans in red states, and because they will always have to be fighting Obamacare in an election year, 20 states are suing. Again. Always. This time they are suing the Trump administration instead of the Obama administration, but it's still about Obamacare.

Wisconsin, Texas and several other red states said in a lawsuit filed today that since Congress repealed the individual mandate's tax penalty for not having coverage, that means the mandate itself—and the whole health care law — is invalid.
The GOP tax law "eliminated the tax penalty of the ACA, without eliminating the mandate itself,” the states argue in a complaint filed today in U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Texas. "What remains, then, is the individual mandate, without any accompanying exercise of Congress's taxing power, which the Supreme Court already held that Congress has no authority to enact."

Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton says that the goal of the suit is total Obamacare repeal, since Congress failed to accomplish that. Trump's Justice Department has not yet said whether it would defend the law in court. Spoiler alert: it probably won't.

Because eight years and millions of people successfully insured later, Republicans can't stand the idea that most people have access to affordable health insurance because of a government program—a program that a black president created.

Twenty red states have nothing better to do with taxpayer money than sue over Obamacare—again

Comments are closed on this story.