For the Affordable Care Act, everything’s coming up roses. As regular readers know, not only have all of the Republican predictions about the failure of “Obamacare” been discredited, but the ACA is clearly effective, popular, affordable, and expanding. What’s more, it’s withstood three U.S. Supreme Court rights, and Republican politicians have generally waved the white flag and abandoned their “repeal and replace” nonsense.
As a New York Times headline summarized yesterday, “Obamacare Keeps Winning.”
At least, the landmark reform law keeps winning everywhere except U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor’s courtroom. USA Today reported this afternoon:
A federal judge in Texas blocked enforcement Thursday of preventative health care mandates included in the Affordable Care Act, setting up the latest legal brawl over Obamacare and threatening to reduce free access to HIV-prevention pills, screenings for cancer and other services.
A Politico report added that O’Connor already sided with the plaintiffs, but he hadn’t said whether his ruling would apply only to the people suing, to everyone in Texas, or nationwide. This morning, in Braidwood Management v. Becerra, the judge issued a “universal” ruling, applying his decision to the entire national marketplace.
Or put another way, the Affordable Care Act requires health insurers to provide a series of free preventive care services — from cancer screenings vaccinations, prenatal services to HIV prevention, pap smears to heart disease screenings — to the benefit of tens of millions of Americans. One notorious jurist has decided to put those benefits in jeopardy.
Naturally, the anti-health care ruling will be appealed, and there’s no reason to automatically assume that this district court ruling will be upheld.
But in the meantime, it’s worth pausing to appreciate just how indefensible O’Connor’s judicial activism has become.
On the surface, the judge struck down the ACA’s preventive…
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