Trump Again Targets Obamacare, Asks SCOTUS to Strike It Down | Eastern North Carolina Now

Publisher's note: This informational nugget was sent to me by Ben Shapiro, who represents the Daily Wire, and since this is one of the most topical news events, it should be published on BCN.

The author of this post is Tim Pearce.


    The Department of Justice is asking the Supreme Court to strike down the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, as unconstitutional after Congress effectively cut out the individual mandate.

    The DOJ filed a brief with the Supreme Court on Thursday, arguing that since Congress negated the penalty for not having health insurance, the law can no longer be justified under the legislature's power to tax. In 2017, Congress passed a Republican-led tax bill that gutted the ACA's individual mandate, reducing it to 0% of a person's income. The new rule took effect last year.

    "The entire ACA thus must fall with the individual mandate," Solicitor General Noel Francisco wrote in the DOJ brief, according to The Wall Street Journal. "The individual mandate is no longer a valid exercise of Congress's legislative authority in light of Congress's elimination of the penalty for noncompliance."

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi released a statement slamming the Trump administration's move, highlighting the political danger of President Trump attacking Obamacare amid a pandemic and months before he is up for reelection.

    "President Trump and the Republicans' campaign to rip away the protections and benefits of the Affordable Care Act in the middle of the coronavirus crisis is an act of unfathomable cruelty," Pelosi said on Thursday. "If President Trump gets his way, 130 million Americans with pre-existing conditions will lose the ACA's lifesaving protections and 23 million Americans will lose their health coverage entirely. There is no legal justification and no moral excuse for the Trump Administration's disastrous efforts to take away Americans' health care."

    Former President Obama with a Democratic-controlled Congress passed his signature piece of legislation in 2010. The GOP tried and failed to repeal and replace Obamacare in 2017, but lawmakers attached a provision to a tax cut bill later in the year that effectively stripped the ACA of the mandate.

    A group of 20 GOP state officials sued the federal government in February 2018 for the courts to strike down the law as unconstitutional. Democratic officials in 17 other states responded in a court filing arguing to keep the law in place. The Trump administration has sided with the plaintiffs against itself. A federal court in Texas sided with the GOP, and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the decision.

    California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, one of the Democratic officials fighting to keep the ACA, issued a statement Thursday responding to the Justice Department's filing.

    "Now is not the time to rip away our best tool to address very real and very deadly health disparities in our communities," Becerra said, according to The New York Times. "This fight comes at the most crucial time. The death toll from the coronavirus today is greater than the death toll of the Vietnam War."
Go Back


Leave a Guest Comment

Your Name or Alias
Your Email Address ( your email address will not be published)
Enter Your Comment ( no code or urls allowed, text only please )




Obama and Biden Directly Implicated in Flynn Affair Guest Editorial, Editorials, Op-Ed & Politics Key Witnesses in Jussie Smollett Case Reverse, Will Now Cooperate After ‘Intervention’ of Prosecutor


HbAD0

Latest Op-Ed & Politics

Vice President Kamala Harris will visit a Minnesota Planned Parenthood clinic, reportedly the first time a president or vice president has visited an abortion facility.
University of Wisconsin tried to punish conservatives for the fact that liberals regularly commit crimes to silence opposition
most voters think EU officials not doing a good job on illegal immigration
Be careful what you wish for, you may get it
Come from behind by GOP candidate is a blueprint to 2024
Biden spending and energy policies to blame
Tuberculosis carried by illegal invaders has already infected Texas cattle
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said this week that the only campaign promise President Joe Biden has delivered on as president is the complete dismantling of the U.S. southern border.

HbAD1

Hamas is reeling after losing two of their most cherished leaders on the same day: military commander Saleh al-Arouri, and Harvard President Claudine Gay.
President Joe Biden’s brother told the Internal Revenue Service that Hunter Biden told him he was in business with a “protege of President Xi,” referring to the leader of China, according to notes by an IRS investigator that were divulged during a congressional interview of Jim Biden.
Gov. Roy Cooper seeks a temporary restraining order to block a law changing the composition of the State Board of Elections.
X owner Elon Musk mocked a news segment from ABC News this week that promoted President Joe Biden’s talking points about the Democrat-led Senate’s failed border bill, which critics and many experts have said would make the situation on the border worse.
That’s the question Marguerite Roza of Georgetown University’s Edunomics Lab sought to answer in a recent webinar on the topic.
The University of Florida has fired all of its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) employees and shut down its DEI office.
Hot on the heels of its highly publicized television performance on New Year's Eve, the pop-punk band Green Day announced the release of an edgy new album titled Get the Vaccine, Climate Change Is Real, and Trump Is Bad.
Glenn Beck: 'When the United States government can come after individuals, that's when you know our republic is crumbling.'
Rep. Mark Green (R-TN) reportedly blasted Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for “stonewalling” details about the illegal immigrant accused of murdering Laken Riley, a 22-year-old Georgia college student.

HbAD2

 
Back to Top