Paxton Leads 20-State Coalition Seeking Injunction Against Obamacare

Obamacare still imposes rising costs transfer of power to the federal government Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas  From the outset Obamacares individual mandate caused countless Americans to purchase insurance they dont need or to enroll in programs that put a tremendous financial burden on Texas and other states" said Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton as he and Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel leading a 20-state coalition filed a motion seeking a preliminary injunction against the federal governments Affordable Care Act commonly known as Obamacare earlier today.

The sooner Obamacare is enjoined the better so that states and individuals can prepare to operate freely again without the stranglehold of a failed Obama-era social experiment" Paxton said.

Before Obamacare the states allowed individuals to determine whether to buy health insurance established high-risk insurance pools to help individuals in ill-health enabled cost-sharing and instituted many other policies that Obamacare now preempts or functionally preempts" the coalition wrote.

• TO VIEW a copy of the motion seeking a preliminary injunction click here.

In February the 20-state coalition filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare explaining that Congress rendered all of Obamacare unconstitutional by doing away with the tax penalty in Obamacares individual mandate when it enacted President Trumps tax overhaul. In the motion for a preliminary injunction the multi-state coalition told the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas that an injunction against Obamacare is necessary to spare the people of Texas and the other states from the enormous financial burden caused by the individual mandate. When the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare in 2012 a majority of the justices agreed that the provision forcing individuals to purchase health insurance was unconstitutional without the tax penalty. The commerce power Chief Justice Roberts explained gives Congress the power to regulate commerce and not to compel commerce as Obamacare does. Furthermore Congress and the Obama Administration made it clear that the individual mandate was an essential component of the law without which the remainder of the law would not have been enacted. In its current unlawful form Obamacare still imposes rising costs and transfers an enormous amount of regulatory power to the federal government. In Texas and 38 other states where the federal government administers health exchanges health insurance premiums rose an average of 105 from 2013 to 2017. Around 70 of U.S. counties present citizens with a noncompetitive situation having only one or two health insurers. Texas and Wisconsin are joined in the lawsuit against Obamacare by the Attorneys General of:

1. Alabama
2. Arkansas
3. Arizona
4. Florida
5. Georgia
6. Indiana
7. Kansas
8. Louisiana
9. Missouri
10. Nebraska
11. North Dakota
12. South Carolina
13. South Dakota
14. Tennessee Utah and
15. West Virginia along with
16. the Governors of Maine and
17. Mississippi