Wisconsin’s recently ousted Republican governor and attorney general, Scott Walker and Brad Schimel, finally have something to celebrate. Their party’s long-sought dream of destroying healthcare for millions of Americans achieved its first legal victory in eight years when a rightwing federal judge in Texas threw out former President Barack Obama’s entire Affordable Care Act (ACA) as unconstitutional. Take that, incoming Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Atty. Gen. Josh Kaul!
Both Evers and Kaul won election by taking advantage of the widespread unpopularity of Wisconsin’s support for the Republican lawsuit to destroy the ACA’s guaranteed coverage for pre-existing conditions and public subsidies lowering the cost of healthcare. Now, Walker and Schimel could go down in history as the political martyrs who prevented millions of undeserving Americans from extending their lives through expensive surgeries and high-priced drugs they couldn’t afford.
One day, statues might be erected in public squares honoring Walker and Schimel for heroically sacrificing their political careers to protect Wisconsin from the socialist tyranny of Medicare for all. Sharing those honors will be the Republican legislators who stood up to the majority of Wisconsin voters by stripping political powers from Evers, Kaul and any other Democrats who might dare to usurp those offices in the future. The top Republican priority was to prevent Evers and Kaul from pulling Wisconsin out of that Republican lawsuit.
‘Pretty Bananas’
As it turned out, Texas U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor issued his sweeping decision striking down the ACA before Evers and Kaul even took office, but Wisconsin taxpayers could still face years of legal fees by remaining part of the long court battle that still lies ahead before coverage of pre-existing conditions and other popular ACA benefits are completely obliterated.
By arguing their case before a Republican-appointed judge in Texas (who was already hostile to the ACA), Republicans got their dream decision. But, even many extremely conservative legal scholars are skeptical of O’Connor’s tortured legal justification for totally upending American healthcare. O’Connor claimed congressional Republicans somehow destroyed the entire law when they passed a tax cut that killed the financial penalty for people who didn’t buy insurance. “It’s pretty bananas,” said Jonathan Adler, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University and a member of the conservative Federalist Society who worked on a previous unsuccessful challenge to the ACA before the U.S. Supreme Court. “This decision makes a mockery of the rule of law and basic principles of democracy.”
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The next step for O’Connor’s decision is the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and, Adler said, “I can’t see who in the Fifth Circuit swallows this.” The U.S. Supreme Court, in decisions written by Chief Justice John Roberts, has twice upheld the ACA as being fully constitutional. Ironically, it could be even worse for Republicans if the Supreme Court agrees to review the ACA again. The soonest that could happen would be 2020. That means voter outrage over continuing Republican attempts to destroy healthcare for millions of people with pre-existing conditions would dominate Donald Trump’s reelection—just as it did during 2018’s midterms. That’s how Democrats won every statewide office in Wisconsin and control of the U.S. House of Representatives. In 2020, Democrats could complete the trifecta by winning the presidency and the U.S. Senate.
That’s why Democrats were practically dancing in the streets after the Texas decision, while many Republicans were strangely silent about their glorious legal victory before a rightwing Republican judge. Incoming Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hailed the ruling for exposing “the monstrous endgame of Republicans’ all-out assault on people with pre-existing conditions and Americans’ access to affordable healthcare.”
Trump’s ‘Great News for America’
Most Republicans who dared say anything at all assured the public all those ACA benefits Republicans have repeatedly tried to repeal would continue as the Texas case moves through the courts. One of the few Republicans foolish enough to call public attention to the latest Republican threat to American healthcare was, of course, the fool-in-chief.
“As I predicted all along, Obamacare has been struck down as an UNCONSTITUTIONAL disaster!” Trump gleefully tweeted. Another presidential tweet called the decision destroying coverage of pre-existing conditions and every other ACA benefit “Great news for America!”
Folks in Wisconsin remember Walker’s dishonest campaign claim that the lawsuit destroying coverage for pre-existing conditions wasn’t really a threat, because Republicans could simply pass a state law restoring those protections. No, they couldn’t. During their ugly, lame-duck session passing laws weakening the elected Democratic governor and attorney general, Republicans couldn’t muster enough votes in one of the nation’s most partisan gerrymandered state legislatures to pass those protections for pre-existing conditions.
Some hate-filled Republicans will never vote to protect anything passed by Obama; others just mindlessly vote to destroy healthcare out of habit. There won’t really be any statues in the square honoring Republican losers. The way to protect public health care in America is to stop electing politicians hellbent on destroying it.
