By Aaron Miller-
A U.S. judge on Friday has thrown out the state of Maryland’s hard fought bid to protect the healthcare law known as Obama Care. The case which assembled powerful voices and pockets committed to overturning President Trump’s derisory steps to traduce and truncate Obama’s efforts or anything connected to the legacy of the former U.S president, miserably failed.
In a ruling that constitutes a win for the Republican president, Baltimore-based U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander said Maryland had failed to support their claim that the Trump administration is likely to terminate enforcement of the 2010 law, officially called the Affordable Care Act. The failure may be temporary because the judge left the door open for a second shot at some later date if sanctioned.
Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland threw the case out , saying that while the president’s profound disdain for the ACA can’t be disputed, neither his attempts to repeal the statute nor his derisive comments about it support an inference that he will fail to enforce the 2010 law.
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“In summation, 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,” she concluded in her summary.
Trump’s administration has been consciously active in its efforts to undermine Obamacare ever since the inauguration of the strong outspoken and controversial president. Obama was actively a campaigning supporter of Hilary Clinton during her failed bid to win the 2016 U.S elections, deriding and warning against the election of Trump, who found his way into the oval White House against all odds.
The lawsuit asked Hollander to declare Obamacare constitutional, something the judge decided not to do. A December ruling pronounced by U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth that the Affordable Care Act was unconstitutional following revisions to the tax code made by Congress had sparked this recent suit. The revisions to the tax code had removed an Obamacare penalty for failing to obtain health insurance.
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Ex President: Barack Obama
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel joined the legal fight as she threw her weight in the mix to intervene in the federal lawsuit to protect the Affordable Care Act with the support of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Nessel joined an amalgamation of three attorneys generals, all determined to intervene in a case in which a Texas judge ruled the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional based on a tax change that eliminated the penalty for not carrying insurance. Led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a group of 20 states brought the suit, calling for the penalty to enforce the law.
In all legal representatives from 19 states and the District of Columbia attempted to uphold the Affordable Care Act, against President Trump’s direction to the U.S. Department of Justice.
CONJECTURE
On Friday, Hollander branded the assertive claim made by Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh, a Democrat, as one that “consists of little more than supposition and conjecture about President Trump’s possible actions,” Hollander wrote.
“In effect, the state proclaims that the sky is falling. But, falling acorns, even several of them, do not amount to a falling sky,” Hollander added.
Frosh said in a statement that Hollander’s decision does not end his effort to defend the law.
“We will resume this litigation immediately if the president breaks his promise of continued enforcement,” said Frosh, who is pursuing separate litigation accusing Trump of violating an anti-corruption provision of the Constitution called the emoluments clause.
Hollander was acutely cognisant of the Supreme Court’s recent rejection of a similar challenge to the appointment of Whitaker, a Trump loyalist without high approval by Democrats, and that other courts have found he was lawfully appointed. Whitaker remains as acting attorney general, though Trump has nominated William Barr, who previously held the post, as attorney general. Trump must be feeling impenetrable with his seeming invincibility with court cases.
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