The Fifth Circuit Appellate Court just handed down its ruling on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. (here) The Court upheld the ruling of the District Court’s finding last year that indeed the individual mandate in Obamacare is unconstitutional.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that the penalty for not owning health insurance (as mandated by the ACA) was a tax. Congress has the right to tax citizens and therefore the individual mandate penalty was constitutional, as was the entire law. However, the Congressional tax reform law of 2017 eliminated the Obamacare tax on individuals not owning health insurance.

Republican attorneys general from 19 states then sued the federal government on the constitutionality of Obamacare. Their case is based on the fact that the tax reform bill of 2017 eliminated the tax on Americans who do not own health insurance under the ACA. Without the penalty, the AGs argue that the entire law is unconstitutional. (here) The AG lawsuit essentially uses the Supreme Court’s legal logic to claim the ACA is now unconstitutional since the tax was eliminated by the federal tax reform legislation.

The architects of the ACA did not include a severability clause and consequently if any part of the law is found to be unconstitutional, then from a legal standpoint the entire law must be unconstitutional. The Fifth District Court did not rule on the constitutionality of the entire law, but simply stated that the individual mandate is unconstitutional.

Although the Fifth Circuit Court remanded the case back to the District Court (to rule on the constitutionality of the overall law), this will no doubt ultimately move the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. SCOTUS has already ruled twice that the law is constitutional. However, the composition of the Court has changed over the past few years and is dramatically more conservative. There is a likelihood this Supreme Court will uphold the lower Courts’ ruling and will find Obamacare unconstitutional. This will give the country an excellent chance to get health care reform correct and put patients, rather than the government, in charge of their health care. (here)