TexasFoldEm

Presented without comment:

AHIP Issues Statement Regarding TX v. United States of America

WASHINGTON, D.C. – America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) issued the following statement regarding the latest developments in TX v. United States of America:

“Millions of Americans rely on the individual market for their coverage and care, and they deserve affordable choices that deliver the value they expect. Initial filings for 2019 plans have shown that, while rates are higher due to the zeroing out of the individual mandate penalty, the market is more steady for most consumers than in previous years, with insurance providers stepping in to serve more consumers in more states.

Last Thursday, in my initial alarm-sounding post about the federal #TexasFoldEm lawsuit against the ACA, I used this headline:

ACA about to be torpedoed by a lawsuit even more idiotic than King vs. Burwell???

Law Professor and ACA expert Nicholas Bagley blasted both the case itself and the Dept. of Justice's response in an epic post which also coined the #TexasFoldEm moniker for this travesty:

For those of you just coming to the case, this is from my earlier recap:

In their complaint, the states [including Texas and other red states] point out (rightly) that the Supreme Court upheld the ACA in NFIB v. Sebelius only because the individual mandate was a tax and (rightly) that Congress has now repealed the penalty for going without insurance. As the states see it, the freestanding requirement to get insurance, which is still on the books, is therefore unconstitutional. Because it’s unconstitutional, the courts must invalidate the entire ACA—lock, stock, and barrel.

Welp. The idiotic #TexasFoldEm lawsuit against the ACA...or more specifically, the Trump Administration's decision to lay down and even join the lawsuit against it--appears to be doing even more damage to the U.S. Justice Department than I had thought:

In addition to three nonpartisan Justice Department attorneys withdrawing from the case just minutes before the government's brief in the case was formally filed (presumably in protest of the decision by their boss), a highly-respected senior attorney with the Department has also resigned in protest:

A highly respected career lawyer at the Justice Department has decided to resign just days after the Trump administration backed a controversial lawsuit that would wreck part of the Affordable Care Act.

About 90% of my focus here at ACASignups.net is on the two biggest sections of the ACA: The Individual Market (3-legged stool, exchanges, subsidies, etc.) and Medicaid expansion. I tend not to write much about Medicare, "traditional" Medicaid or the Employer-Sponsored Insurance (ESI) market, which mainly consists of the Large Group Market (companies with 50 employees or more) and the Small Group Market (companies with fewer than 50 employees). As it happens, the ESI market covers nearly half the U.S. population (roughly 155 million Americans, give or take).

Under the ACA, individual market policies have to include the following "Blue Leg" provisions to be considered ACA-compliant:

This is about as simple as I could make it. It's an absolutely absurd argument, but there it is: