Affordable Care Act Update

SCHOOL LAW ADVISORY
Volume 31, No. 1

On December 14, 2018, a federal district court in Texas issued a declaratory judgment that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was unconstitutional. The recent Texas court ruling
comes in the wake of a 2012 decision by the United States Supreme Court, which upheld the ACA’s so-called “individual mandate” requiring most taxpayers to obtain health insurance coverage or face a fine, as valid under Congress’s taxing power. However, because the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act3 has since eliminated that tax, the Texas district court judge ruled that the ACA’s individual mandate can no longer be considered a valid exercise of Congress’s taxing power and therefore the individual mandate, and the entire ACA, is now unconstitutional. The Texas court ruling followed an executive order signed by President Trump directing governmental departments and agencies to exercise all authority and discretion available to them to “waive, defer, grant exemptions from, or delay the implementation of” any portion of the ACA that would impose a financial burden on states, individuals, or members of the healthcare industry….To continue reading, visit https://schoollaw.com/school-law-advisory.

The School Law Advisory is a quarterly publication that addresses key issues in school law, including school finance, employment, collective bargaining, student rights and special education. If you keep up with the School Law Advisory, you keep up with school law. Don’t miss out, subscribe today!