Judge Shelves Suit to Declare ObamaCare Constitutional

Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh’s (D) lawsuit seeking to have the Affordable Care Act (ACA) declared constitutional cannot go forward unless the Trump administration fails to enforce the healthcare law, a federal judge ruled Friday.

“It is a bedrock principle that Article III of the … Constitution limits judicial power to ‘actual, ongoing cases or controversies,'” wrote Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. “The State points to the President’s rhetoric, his legislative agenda, his regulatory agenda, and his litigation positions to demonstrate that he might possibly terminate enforcement of the ACA. But, its claim consists of little more than supposition and conjecture about President Trump’s possible actions.”

“In effect, the State proclaims that the sky is falling,” Hollander wrote. “But, falling acorns, even several of them, do not amount to a falling sky. Moreover, the State has not pointed to any actual threat by the President to terminate enforcement of the ACA … In my view, the State’s allegations are speculative and thus deficient … Therefore, at this point in time, I must dismiss the case for lack of standing.”

The lawsuit, known as State of Maryland v. United States of America, was filed in September in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. It alleges that President Trump has indicated he won’t enforce the ACA and that disruption of ACA enforcement will lead to higher uncompensated care costs. Arguments in the case were presented this past December.

In her decision, Hollander did leave open the door for the case to be re-opened. “Although the State’s claim is not justiciable at this juncture, its claim may become ripe for review in the future, if its alleged injury ‘move[s] from the speculative to the concrete’,” she wrote. “In that circumstance … the State would be entitled to revive the litigation.”

The Maryland lawsuit is a mirror image of Texas v. United States, the anti-ACA suit filed by 20 Republican state attorneys general. In that case, the judge in December ruled the ACA unconstitutional because Congress, in 2017, eliminated the penalty uninsured individuals were required to pay as part of the so-called individual mandate. With the mandate effectively gone, the ACA could no longer stand, the Texas judge said. (That decision is on hold while the case is appealed, and the Trump administration said it will continue to enforce the ACA in the meantime.)

Hollander’s ruling “simply [means] that we must wait to pursue our case,” Frosh said in a statement Friday. “We will resume this litigation immediately if the President breaks his promise of continued enforcement or when the stay of the Texas Court’s decision is lifted.”

https://www.medpagetoday.com/publichealthpolicy/repeal-and-replace/77791