Trump Justice Department Moves to Strike Down ACA

Congressional Republicans repeatedly tried, unsuccessfully, to repeal the Affordable Care Act, so now the Trump Regime is grabbing the baton and trying to get it done through the courts they're busily stacking.

Ariane de Vogue and Tami Luhby at CNN report:

The Trump administration on Monday said the entire Affordable Care Act should be struck down, in a dramatic reversal.

In a filing with a federal appeals court, the Justice Department said it agreed with the ruling of a federal judge in Texas that invalidated the Obama-era health care law.

In a letter Monday night, the administration said "it is not urging that any portion of the district court's judgment be reversed."

"The Department of Justice has determined that the district court's comprehensive opinion came to the correct conclusion and will support it on appeal," said Kerri Kupec, spokesperson for the Justice Department.

It's a major shift for the Justice Department from when Jeff Sessions was attorney general. At the time, the administration argued that the community rating rule and the guaranteed issue requirement — protections for people with pre-existing conditions — could not be defended but the rest of the law could stand.

After the Justice Department took that position, federal District Judge Reed O'Connor struck down the entire law and the case is currently before a federal appeals court.

...Because the case is before one of the most conservative appellate courts in the country, it almost guarantees that the issue will return to the newly solidified conservative Supreme Court at some point.

During Attorney General Bill Barr's confirmation hearing, Senator Kamala Harris asked him if he was "open to reconsidering the position" of the Justice Department, and he replied, "Yes." She was actually asking if he would consider reversing the Justice Department's decision not to defend the preexisting conditions provision, but apparently he was actually answering that he would reconsider reversing the Justice Department's decision to defend all the rest of it.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a statement on the Trump Regime's decision to try to destroy the ACA:

Tonight in federal court, the Trump Administration decided not only to try to destroy protections for Americans living with pre-existing conditions, but to declare all-out war on the health care of the American people.

On the very first day that the Democratic Majority held the gavel, the House of Representatives voted to intervene against Republicans' monstrous health care lawsuit to defend people with pre-existing conditions and the health care of all Americans. While the Trump Administration broadens its monstrous ambitions from destroying protections for pre-existing conditions to tearing down every last benefit and protection the Affordable Care Act provides, Democrats are fiercely defending the law of the land and protecting all Americans' health care.

Democrats will continue to fight relentlessly to protect people with pre-existing conditions and to deliver lower health costs and prescription drug prices for every American.

Democrats will reportedly roll out ambitious healthcare legislation today. They will, of course, have a nigh impossible journey to getting a healthcare bill passed, given a Republican Senate majority and a president who will refuse to sign it. But all they can do is try mightily.

And we need to get ready to make some calls.