A Republican federal appeals court appears determined to strike down Obamacare
There was no law in New Orleans today
Ian Millhiser
Jul 9, 2019, 4:50 pm
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA — A panel of two Republicans and one Democrat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit heard oral arguments on Tuesday in a case asking them to repeal the Affordable Care Act in its entirety. The Democrat did not speak, although she remains overwhelmingly likely to reject this attack on Obamacare.
The Republicans, by contrast, came to court today wearing their partisan hats. When Samuel Siegel, the first of two lawyers defending the law, was at the podium for his portion of the arguments, Judges Jennifer Elrod and Kurt Englehardt peppered him with questions, many of them delivered in a mocking tone. At one point, Englehardt even accused Siegel of making an argument that betrays the American Revolutionary War.
Meanwhile, the three lawyers opposing the law did receive some critical questions from the two Republican judges, but those questions were not especially animated and they soon trailed off. Kyle Hawkins, the lawyer who delivered the bulk of the anti-Obamacare arguments, spent much of his time speaking before a silent panel, punctuated mainly by listless questions from Elrod that seemed designed primarily to give him something to talk about.
The most ominous sign of all is that the Republicans spent a considerable amount of time discussing what would be the appropriate scope of a court order striking the Affordable Care Act — a matter that obviously is only relevant if they intend to strike the law.
https://thinkprogress.org/republican-judges-seem-determined-to-strike-down-obamacare-ad1f584ee8cb/
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If an invading army committed such an act — If it killed 24,000 innocent people, year after year — we would name that act an “atrocity.” Resolutions would be debated in the United Nations Security Council. Peacekeepers would be sent to intervene.
But in this case, one of the greatest acts of mass killing to occur on American soil since the Civil War will not be committed by an army. It may, however, be committed by Jennifer Elrod and Kurt Engelhardt.
If the law permitted such a result, then perhaps it could be justified. But there is no law supporting such an outcome. It’s just pure, cruel ideology all the way down.
Jennifer Elrod
https://fedsoc.org/contributors/jennifer-elrod
Kurt Englehardt
https://www.afj.org/our-work/nominees/kurt-d-engelhardt.
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