In a devastating blow to the 2010 healthcare law, U.S. District Court Judge Vince Chhabria recently denied a request from 18 different states, including California, for a temporary restraining order, which would have forced the current administration to continue providing the states with $600 million per month in Obamacare insurance company subsidies.
Judge Chhabria, who was appointed by former president Barack Obama, ruled against issuing an emergency order that would have restored the so-called "cost-sharing reduction" (CSR) payments on the grounds that such an act would be unconstitutional without Congressional authorization.
In a statement on his decision, Judge Chhabria explained that the states that are demanding the continuation of these Obamacare subsidies have already devised a plan to mitigate the damages that could potentially result from their absence. "And although you wouldn't know it from reading the states' papers in this lawsuit, the truth is that most state regulators have devised responses that give millions of lower-income people better health coverage options than they would otherwise have had," the judge explained.
In the state of California, this "backup plan" for the lack of CSR payments that Judge Chhabria speaks about is heightened Healthcare premiums for Covered California, which is accomplished by the addition of a 12.4 percent surcharge. On top of this, California has already authorized an additional 12.9 percent increase for Covered California's Silver Plan in 2018. Because this is just an average surcharge, some regions of the state could be forced to pay even more, with 2018 premiums potentially reaching 40 percent.
Indeed, rising premiums has been one of the main problems with Obamacare since the beginning, not just in the state of California but all across the country. Of course, Barack Obama famously declared over and over again that the passage of the Affordable Care Act would lower premiums for the average family, which turned out to be a complete and utter lie. But then again, Barack Obama never let deceiving the American people get in the way of his radical agenda before, so why would he tell the truth when it comes to nationalizing America's healthcare system? (Related: Americans will face yet another double-digit increase in healthcare premiums in 2018.)
Republicans who voted for Donald Trump last November should be praising the president for sticking to his campaign promise and fighting to dismantle the Affordable Care Act piece by piece. It is a law that is not only unconstitutional (the federal government does not have the power to force people into making a transaction that they do not want to make), but also incredibly damaging to the economy. Since it's passage in 2010, Obamacare has sent premiums through the roof, thereby separating millions of Americans from more and more of their hard-earned money. Businesses have suffered tremendously, and on top of it all, the numbers on the U.S. debt clock are continuing to climb with no end in sight. Our country simply cannot afford government-run healthcare.
Yet despite all of this, Republicans in both the Senate and the House of Representatives have been relatively hesitant to act. Most of them have made bold promises to the American people that they will fight Obamacare with everything they've got, and even acknowledge that it is doing a tremendous amount of harm to our country and to future generations. But even when President Trump calls on them to get it done once and for all, nothing happens. Their promises are never kept. And quite frankly, if Republicans can't even repeal Obamacare after the American people gave them full control over the federal government, then they deserve to lose in future elections.
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