From The Trussville Tribune staff reports
MONTGOMERY – Attorney General Steve Marshall announced Alabama is one of 20 states that filed a motion in federal court this week seeking a preliminary injunction against the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).
“The so-called Affordable Care Act has been anything but affordable for both consumers and for states,” said Attorney General Marshall.
“In 2012, Obamacare barely survived a legal challenge when the U.S. Supreme Court determined that the law’s individual mandate was constitutional only because it qualified as a tax penalty for those who chose not to purchase health insurance.”
“However, five years later Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act eliminating Obamacare’s tax penalty. Accordingly, Obamacare’s costly individual mandate is no longer legally justifiable.”
“This week, I joined a multi-state motion filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas seeking to halt Obamacare because of the tremendous cost of its individual mandate to individuals and to states.”
The passage of Obamacare transferred a majority of states’ regulatory authority over health insurance to the federal government. Included in the 20-state motion is a declaration from Alabama Department of Insurance Commissioner Jim Ridling citing Obamacare’s negative impact on health insurance cost and choice to Alabama consumers.
In the 38 states, including Alabama, where the federal government administers health exchanges, health insurance premiums have risen an average of over 100 percent from 2013 to 2017.
Alabama joined the attorneys general of Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin, along with the governors of Maine and Mississippi, in filing the motion for a preliminary injunction against Obamacare on April 26.