Former President Obama signs Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, into law on March 23, 2010
The recent tax-cut legislation abolishes penalties for failing to buy health insurance, a development 20 states now argue should render the rest of Obamacare unconstitutional.
Led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the states filed suit in federal district court in Fort Worth on Monday, asking for an injunction against continued enforcement of the Affordable Care Act and, ultimately, for the law to be struck down.
President Trump and Republicans often assert that the tax bill repealed the individual mandate, but that’s not exactly correct.
“It made the individual mandate a zero. It zeroed it out, which is what they could do because the Supreme Court had declared the individual mandate a tax, but it didn’t strike the language from the statute,” said Rob Henneke, a former colleague of Paxton’s