GOP’s Obamacare Suit May Strengthen the Law

Obamacare is under legal assault for what seems like the thousandth time.

A Texas judge heard oral arguments Wednesday in a state-led, Trump administration-supported case that takes aim at the Affordable Care Act — specifically, the mandate requiring individuals to obtain health insurance. The argument centers on the fact that because Congress last year eliminated the penalty for not having insurance, the so-called individual mandate can no longer be considered a tax and is therefore unconstitutional.

(Related: Trump’s Team Asks Court to Let ACA Underwriting Rules Die in 2019)

The states in the case, led by Texas, believe that the individual mandate is so crucial to the law that the whole thing needs to be struck down. The Trump administration is focused more narrowly on eliminating parts of the law that protect Americans with pre-existing conditions. Either way, experts see the case as a long shot. And the administration’s backing — a departure from the custom of defending federal law — looks like a blunder that may help Democrats in upcoming midterm elections while also bolstering the ACA.

When an Obamacare skeptic casts doubt on the case — as prominent libertarian legal scholar and ACA critic Jonathan Adler did recently in calling the case “absurd” — you know it’s not off to a good start. The issue is the attempted leap from the idea that the mandate is unconstitutional to the notion that the entire law or large portions of it need to be struck down.

To make that jump, the lawsuit likely needs to prove that Congress intended for its action last year to apply to other parts of the ACA. But in the real world, Congress voted to zero out a tax while explicitly maintaining the rest of the law. Congress had multiple opportunities to repeal bigger chunks of the legislation, and chose not to. Its intent is pretty clear.