|
 The attorneys general of Ohio and Montana submitted "friend of the
court" briefs to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals,
which is expected to review a December ruling by U.S. District Judge
Reed O'Connor in Fort Worth, Texas, striking down the Affordable
Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare.
Dozens of patient and healthcare industry groups, including the
American Medical Association, American Hospital Association,
American Cancer Society and seniors advocacy group AARP also filed
briefs in support of the law.
The briefs come less than a week after the U.S. Department of
Justice, in an unexpected legal maneuver, said the entire healthcare
law should be invalidated. Previously, President Donald Trump's
administration had said portions of Obamacare should be struck down
and others should survive, including a state-led expansion of the
Medicaid health insurance program for the poor.
The 2010 law, seen as the signature domestic achievement of Trump's
Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, has been a flash point of
American politics since it passed, with Republicans including Trump
repeatedly attempting to overturn it.
Democrats made defending the law a powerful messaging tool in the
campaign for the November elections, in which they won a decisive
38-seat majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The House submitted a filing last month to the appeals court in
support of the law, as did a group of 17 mostly Democratic-led
states including California and New York.
[to top of second column] |
The lawsuit that led to the Texas ruling was brought by a coalition
of 20 Republican-led states including Texas, Alabama and Florida.
It centered on the law's so-called individual mandate requiring
individuals to buy health insurance or pay a penalty. In 2012, the
U.S. Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the mandate, ruling that
the penalty was allowed through Congress' power to tax.
In late 2017, however, Trump, a Republican, signed a tax bill
reducing the penalty for not buying insurance to zero. The states
challenging the law argued that the mandate was no longer a tax, and
was therefore unconstitutional.
O'Connor agreed, and found that the rest of the law could not be
separated from the mandate, meaning it must be struck down entirely.
About 11.8 million consumers nationwide enrolled in 2018 Obamacare
exchange plans, according to the U.S. government's Centers for
Medicare and Medicaid Services.
(Reporting by Brendan Pierson in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder
and Peter Cooney)
[© 2019 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2019 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
 |
