Yesterday, the Trump Administration pursued the complete repeal of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. (here) President Obama signed the ACA into law exactly nine years ago. No Congressional Republicans voted for the ACA and a few Democrats in the U.S. House voted against the bill, as well.

The two main goals of the ACA are universal health insurance coverage and decreasing the ever-rising costs of health care in the U.S. To date, 20 million Americans have health insurance through Obamacare, only 40 percent of those uninsured in 2010. Costs of health care in this country continue to explode in spite of the ACA. (here)

Supporters of Obamacare, of course, want more taxpayer money to shore up the failing law.

The Trump Administration, on the other hand, is aggressively seeking repeal of the law on legal grounds. A major constitutional issue of the ACA was that the law forced all Americans to buy health insurance or pay a fine. In 2012, the Robert’s Supreme Court handed down a contorted ruling that the penalty for not owning health insurance was simply a tax. Since Congress has the constitutional right to tax Americans, the Court ruled the ACA was indeed constitutional.

In 2017, as part of the tax reform bill, Congress repealed the tax on the Obamacare individual mandate. The ACA has no severability clause, so if any part of the law is found to be unconstitutional, then the entire law is unconstitutional. Red state attorneys general and governors sued the federal government over the constitutionality of the ACA and in December, 2018, a federal judge ruled the law unconstitutional.

The federal judge’s ruling was appealed to the 5^th District Court in New Orleans. Yesterday, the Trump Administration went to the Appeals Court in support of the repeal of the entire law. Undoubtedly, the case will eventually work its way back up to the U.S. Supreme Court. It is still the Robert’s Court, but obviously the composition of the Court is different now than in 2012.

Supporters of the ACA argue that repeal of the law would be extremely disruptive to our health care delivery system. They see no other alternatives to the poor-quality Medicaid entitlement, the huge regulatory burden of the ACA, and the ever-increasing demand for taxpayer dollars to shore up the Obamacare exchanges.

It is past time to repeal the ACA and start over with patient-centric, not government-controlled, health care. (here) The federal administration’s support of the lawsuit will potentially add credibility and strength to overturning Obamacare.