[U] Texas ACA Charade. Yawn. Ruling Stayed, On Appeal

UPDATED, from a laundromat — 12.31.2018 @ 9:30 AM: just as we said, the judge below has stayed his order, while appeals run. He well-knows the appellate courts would pillory him — if he doesn’t. End update.

[This was pecked out, and gingerly too, on a phone screen — excuse any typos.] It scarcely needs mentioning, but a trial level federal judge in Texas has ruled (but stayed his ruling, pending appeal), that all of the ACA is unconstitutional.

This ruling is silly. Simply. . . silly.

At least four higher federal courts, including the US Supreme Court, previously ruled the mandate (according to post 2016 Congressional intentions, no less), may be separated from the overall ACA scheme. And those courts have all done so. [A less than charitable take — on the judge’s decision — might be that he intended, by issuing it on the Friday night before today’s ACA sign up deadlines, to sow confusion — and discourage his fellow Americans from so signing up. Ugly, if accurate.]

This judge says the ACA as a whole fails, because the mandate is inseparable from it. But Congress expressly said the opposite.

This decision is a dead letter. It will mean nothing to the continued ACA process. Onward.

नमस्ते