Regarding Obamacare, Trump and His DOJ Declare War On The Rule Of Law (And On Me, Too)

As most readers know, your humble correspondent is being treated for Stage 4 cancer, with no end in sight.  My Obamacare health insurance covers the targeted therapy medications which have kept me alive for the past 16 months.  I will need this treatment regimen for the rest of my life.

So I was naturally more than a little concerned to learn of Trump's latest attempt to kill me. 

Our Rotting Tangelo Golfer-In-Chief had his Justice Dept. file a brief in a Texas lawsuit which aims to invalidate the entire law on the shaky grounds that the ACA's mandated insurance coverage now has no penalty for failure to be covered.  (Trump's doing.)  They claim the no-penalty mandate is unconstitutional, therefore the entire ACA is unconstitutional, therefore let's all go back to the bad old days.

The DOJ's brief urges the Texas court to agree with the plaintiffs and invalidate the law -- the very law that the DOJ and president are sworn to uphold and defend.  But in this case, they are publicly pissing all over the rule of law.  Excerpts from a great Vox article by law professor Nicholas Bagley, full article linked below:
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In an unexpected move, the Justice Department filed a brief Thursday night urging a Texas court to invalidate the Affordable Care Act’s crucial insurance reforms — including the prohibition on refusing to cover people with preexisting conditions. Although the ACA is not in immediate peril, the brief represents a blow to the integrity and independence of the Justice Department. It also displays the Trump administration’s contempt for the rule of law.

For Justice Department lawyers — and I was one myself (from 2007 to 2010) — the duty to defend congressional statutes is at the core of what it means to be a government attorney. Yet hours before the federal government filed its brief, three line attorneys from the Justice Department withdrew from the case. That’s almost unheard of. These are lawyers who have made arguments they personally disagreed with countless times. They’re civil servants; they’re good soldiers. Yet they could not sign on to the administration’s argument. That’s how outlandish it is.

But the Trump administration has just announced that it doesn’t care about a law that was passed by Congress and signed by the president. All that matters is that it hates the law and has a (laughable) argument for casting it aside.

That’s not a rule of law I recognize. That’s a rule by whim. It scares me, and it should scare you too.

https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2018/6/8/17442238/trump-aca-obamacare-texas-department-of-justice-rule-of-law