The Texas v. US lawsuit, in which a Texas federal judge found the ACA unconstitutional last month, has now been appealed. See our December 18th blog post for background. This ruling, if upheld, would devastate the Medicaid expansion, marketplaces such as the WA Health Benefit Exchange, pre-existing condition protections, health care delivery system reforms, public health and workforce funding, and everything else in the law. The case has now been appealed to the very conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and is likely to reach the Supreme Court.

The ruling has been stayed pending appeal, so the ACA remains in effect until a final decision.

In response to the ruling in this lawsuit, the House of Representatives filed a motion seeking to intervene as a party in the case to defend the ACA on the first day of the new Congress, with Democrats now in the majority.

The Senate Democratic Caucus has re-introduced a resolution to authorize the Senate to intervene in the lawsuit to defend the ACA, and sent a letter urging the President and the Department of Justice to request a stay in the case and defend the constitutionality of the law. 

In other court news, judges in California and Pennsylvania have blocked enforcement of the Trump administration’s final rules allowing employers that object to providing contraceptive coverage for religious or moral reasons to opt out of doing so. These rules, which would create much broader exemptions to the ACA’s contraceptive coverage mandate than previously, were scheduled to take effect January 14, 2019. However, the Pennsylvania court issued a preliminary injunction that prevents the rules’ implementation nationwide. The California preliminary injunction prohibits enforcement in the 13 plaintiff states, including Washington, and the District of Columbia. Appeals of the decisions are likely.