Obamacare is in jeopardy once again, and the question is whether the Supreme Court will have to decide the fate of the Affordable Care Act once again. A federal judge in Texas ruled that the entire law was unconstitutional last Friday night in a lawsuit filed by a coalition of
twenty Republican led states. President Trump had ordered the Justice Department to stop defending the a c A, and he applauded the judge's decision in a speech at the Congressional ball I believe we're going to get really good healthcare. Exciting things happened over the last twenty four hours. Joining me now is Tim Josh, professor at Washington and LEAs School of Law. Tim this lawsuits challenge to the a c A is centered on the Individual Mandate. Tell us
about it and the judge's ruling well. The Individual mandate was the provision of the Affordable Care Act that required people to either have health insurance or fit into an exception, or pay attacks and against the law was signed. It was allens with the argument that Congress had no authority to require people to buy a product, and the Supreme Court ultimately agreed with that after a couple of years of litigation. But what the Supreme Court said was it
the Congress can't do that. But what Congress can do is to give people the choice of either being insured or paying attacks. And that's what Congress did, and that's okay. Congress dous has the power to tacks. O'Connor. Judge O'Connor in Texas says now that since Congress in reduced the amount of attacks to zero, there's no longer attacks, and
therefore the mandate is unconstitutional. And here taking a huge jump, the entire nine hundred pages, hundreds of sections of the law all depend on the individual mandate, and therefore the whole law goes away. He's basically wrong at every step with his logic, but right now that's his judgment and the country is going to have to figure out how
to deal with it. So seventeen Democrat led states have intervened in the lawsuit and they're going to appeal the decision to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is all been referred to as the most conservative appellate court in the country. What's the likelihood that the judge's decision
will be reversed? Well, I mean, it is one of the most conservative circuits in the country, and I believe it has as many active judges appointed by Trump as it does have the judges appointed by all preceding Democratic presidents.
Having said that this decision is so outside of the bounds of the current law that I am fairly confident that just about any three judge panel that they draw on the Fifth Circuit is going to reverse this decision, so at least at least reverse the part of it that says that the entire A c A collapses if the individual mandate is not sustainable. I mean, this decision affects every American. Uh, it affects people on Medicaid, it affects people on Medicare, It affects most of us who
are covered through our jobs. It would repeal the Indian Health Service Act. It repeals a lot of provisions that have very little to do with health care. And so I think the idea that somehow, if you pull out the individual mandate, restaurants should no longer have to disclose the calorie account of their burgers, or nursing mothers should no longer have privacy. Um, that's ridiculous, and I think just about any other judge in the country would see that.
What about the Supreme Court. Is the Supreme Court going to take it in any event? Or might it just say no if it's a Fifth Circuit reverses. I think if the if the Fifth Circuit reverses, the Supreme Court will in all likelihood say no, We're going to leave it at that. I don't think Chief Justice Roberts is eager to have another Affordable Care Act case on his docket, but I mean, it would take four judges to decide
that for Justices. But I really think if if if Circuit reverses, as I expect, that that will be the end of it. If the Fifth Circuit affirms this judgment, then I think the Supreme Court will definitely have to take it. You can't just drop this big a bomb on the American healthcare system and ignore it. So Judge rid O'Connor, the judge who made the decision in this case, was appointed by President George W. Bush, tell us more about his decisions in previous challenges to the health law
and also against efforts to expand transgender rights. Well, yes, he has been very hostile to transgender rights. He basically sees they're being men and they're being women, and there being nothing else. And therefore he reads the sex discrimination laws and the Affordable Care Act anti discrimination previsions as
only applying to men and women. So he is a couple of rulings now on transgender rights in which he has taken a very strong stance on that, contrary to the position many other just have taken with the Affordable Care Act. One of those cases was an Affordable Care Act case. There's also a case that's kind of in the weeds with respect to health insurance tax where he ruled against the federal government on a tax um that
is imposed on Medicaid managed care plans um. He is also ruled against a number of other Obama era regulations. So he seems to be a very political judge, to have a very strong political agenda, and he seems to
be pursuing it through this court. He is the only judge in his particular subdistrict, So any time the Texas Attorney General or anybody else wants to get a particular ruling, they file it in his court, and he's the judge that they draw, as opposed to most courts in the country where you take your your luck when you file a case as to which of many judges you will end up with. That was the judge reversed on those
Obamacare decisions. I don't believe any of them. I don't believe there are decisions yet in any of those cases, although the federal government has appealed one of them and the issue in one of the other cases. The transgender rights under the Affordable Care Act has been litigated in a number of other courts who have gone the other way. All right, thanks so much, Tim, As always, that's Timothy Johnston, professor at Washington and Lee School of Law.