How it works: A federal judge ruled in December that the ACA's individual mandate has become unconstitutional, because of the way Republicans zeroed out the penalty for being uninsured. If any Americans needed any more reason to vote this bunch of syphilitic ingrates out of office in 2020, here it is. Millions of people out of insurance. Biosimilars of all kinds left unfunded. All thanks to a Republican vendetta against an originally Republican healthcare plan, which has actually done some good for many of their constituents.Why it matters: A ruling striking down the entire ACA would upend major parts of the health care system. Millions of people would lose their health care coverage, and a host of seemingly unrelated policies — including new experiments in how Medicare pays for care and an entire class of prescription drugs — would also go out the window.
I'm curious what the play is. I'll bet their hope is that now that they've got BeerBro on the court they'll be able to take the whole thing down. But Obamacare is more popular than it's ever been and from a healthcare perspective, it's actually controlling costs. They might very well get their pyrrhic victory against Obamacare. But we're at the point where I think there's a real chance that it'll come back with a vengeance, and soon. DOMA was passed in '96. Gay marriage was 50-state legal in 2015. And there's a whole bunch of 'boomers that can't afford their medication already.
I was typing out my reply and realized that the Justice Department, as part of the Executive, has very little accountability even to the GOP constituency. Sure, those boomers who voted Trump may not be able to afford their insulin, but Bill Barr and Boofin' Brett aren't technically required to give two shits about those plebs. Although a Pyrrhic victory may cost the GOP their foothold in the legislature, I'm convinced that they've successfully grafted themselves into the entire judicial branch. It certainly won't be the end of the healthcare debate in America, and I could certainly see millions of people losing their insurance as impetus for a Medicare-for-All type initiative. But prior experience indicates that if the people who've hijacked our government don't want to play ball, they'll just throw a tantrum and hold their breath. And thanks to talk radio and Fox News it somehow keeps working.
I've just started to look at everything the GOP does as a bunch of angry old people who know they only matter now because of the electoral college and procedural shenanigans and won't matter at all once enough angry old people die off killing the livestock, burning the fields, poisoning the wells and smashing the buildings on their way out.