Saturday Reads: Why do they want us to Die?

Good Morning Sky Dancers!

I have a pre-exisiting condition.  I developed cancer when I was pregnant with my youngest and was diagnosed about 5 months after her birth with inoperable 4th stage cancer.  I asked my ob/gyn if she had to choose a type of cancer would this be it.  She said no because, to this day, I’m the only one who appears to have recovered from this form of leiomyosarcoma. Many cancer survivors–like me and the children in these pictures– as well as many others living with other illnesses breathed a sigh of relief when the Affordable Healthcare Act passed.  I was no longer at the mercy of an employer with a stellar health plan.  I could get health care.

Many Republican controlled states and the Republicans throughout all levels of government have sworn to kill the ACA.  The weird thing is a lot of them ran this last election promising they supported this feature of the ACA while they were actively supporting the very lawsuit that would put people like me and these kids in jeopardy.

Here’s how one crazy judge in Texas has put many lives in danger.  At the very least, it will head back to SCOTUS.  This is the bottom line via Axios.

A White House statement said: “We expect this ruling will be appealed to the Supreme Court. Pending the appeal process, the law remains in place.”

• “The ruling was over a lawsuit filed this year by a group of Republican governors and state attorneys general,” per the N.Y. Times.
• U.S. District Court Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote that the individual mandate requiring people to have health insurance “can no longer be sustained as an exercise of Congress’s tax power.”

The big picture: This was an amazingly broad ruling. The judge didn’t just strike down everything that’s related to the individual mandate. He struck down everything, period.

• That includes the parts that everyone likes, like the expansion of Medicaid, young adults staying on their parents’ plans — and, of course, coverage of pre-existing conditions.
• Nothing happens right away. The ruling will be appealed, there’s no injunction to shut down the law right now, and the Trump administration is making it clear the law stays in place for now.

Why it matters: You should take this ruling seriously. It’s getting a lot of criticism from legal experts, including ACA critics, and it could be overturned — but it won’t definitely be overturned. This really could end with the ACA being wiped out.

• The ACA has already survived two near-death experiences with the Supreme Court — over the mandate in 2012 and subsidies in 2015.
• But that was before the Kavanaugh Court. If this ruling gets that far, the justices could say the ruling went too far and overturn it.
• But there’s no guarantee that a more conservative court won’t just let the law die.

Political fallout: This could be a nightmare for Republicans in suburbs and swing states.

• The midterms proved that the ACA has gotten more popular since the GOP started trying to repeal it — especially the protections for pre-existing conditions.
• If the law goes away, that goes with it. This is not the fight Republicans want to have.

How did one judge rule the entire ACA unconstitutional?  Here’s the coverage from WAPO by Amy Goldstein.

A federal judge in Texas threw a dagger into the Affordable Care Act on Friday night, ruling that the entire health-care law is unconstitutional because of a recent change in federal tax law.

The opinion by U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor overturns all of the sprawling law nationwide.

The ruling came on the eve of the deadline Saturday for Americans to sign up for coverage in the federal insurance exchange created under the law. If the ruling stands, it would create widespread disruption across the U.S. health-care system — from no-charge preventive services for older Americans on Medicare to the expansion of Medicaid in most states, to the shape of the Indian Health Service — in all, hundreds of provisions in the law that was a prized domestic achievement of President Barack Obama.

President Trump, who has made the dismantling of the ACA a chief goal since his campaign, swiftly tweeted his pleasure at the opinion. “As I predicted all along, Obamacare has been struck down as an UNCONSTITUTIONAL disaster!” the president wrote just after 9 p.m. “Now Congress must pass a STRONG law that provides GREAT healthcare and protects pre-existing conditions.”

That’s right.  One small change through many lives in jeopardy.  We now have rampant uncertainty in the health insurance market.  Here’s more information via Bloomberg.

U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth agreed with a coalition of Republican states led by Texas that he had to eviscerate the Affordable Care Act, the signature health-care overhaul by President Barack Obama, after Congress last year zeroed out a key provision — the tax penalty for not complying with the requirement to buy insurance.

“Today’s ruling is an assault on 133 million Americans with preexisting conditions, on the 20 million Americans who rely on the ACA’s consumer protections for health care, and on America’s faithful progress toward affordable health care for all Americans,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a statement, leading a chorus of Democrats who blasted the decision. A spokeswoman for Becerra vowed a quick challenge to O’Connor’s ruling.

Obamacare was struck down by a Texas federal judge in a ruling that casts uncertainty on insurance coverage for millions of U.S. residents.

The decision Friday finding the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional comes at the tail end of a six-week open enrollment period for the program in 2019 and underscores a divide between Republicans who have long sought to invalidate the law and Democrats who fought to keep it in place.

So, that’s all I have time to post today as I’m covering for our BB who is under the weather.  Also, I’m headed out to see what’s available to me on this last day of ability to apply for coverage under the ACA.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?