MAGA Judges On: The Affordable Care Act

Ever since it became law, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been under constant threat. One primary threat is from extremist judges who were appointed, in part, because they were hostile towards the ACA. 

Judges who have made radical statements and issued harmful decisions, like those featured below, cannot be trusted to rule with the best interests of the public in mind. Already, over 70 percent of Americans across the political spectrum believe that judges have too much power over our laws and regulations. This power allows rogue judges to enact policies through the courts that would never pass through other legislative means. 

This is not how our democracy is meant to function–we need more fair-minded judges on the courts who will rule to protect our rights and freedoms, not eliminate them. 

Justice Amy Coney Barrett  – Supreme Court

• In a book review written before joining the Court, Barrett denounced Chief Justice Roberts’s opinions in both NFIB and King, claiming the chief justice “pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh – Supreme Court

• While serving on the D.C. Circuit, he dissented in two cases that upheld the ACA. One of the dissents would later be described by one of his former clerks as a “road map” to invalidate the law. 

Judge James Ho – Fifth Circuit 

• In an op-ed Ho wrote, “Cornyn was one of the earliest officials to predict that Obamacare would be not just bad policy, but a threat to the Constitution.”

Judge Steven Grasz – Eighth Circuit 

• Wrote in an op-ed, that the Supreme Court’s decision upholding the ACA “placed the legitimacy of the Court, as well as our freedom as Americans, in great jeopardy.”

Judge Reed O’Connor  – Northern District of Texas

• Ruled that the individual mandate was unconstitutional after the passage of legislation and in his opinion since the individual mandate was not severable from the rest of the law, the entire ACA must fall.

These are statements that show clear bias on the Affordable Care Act, which nearly two-thirds of Americans view favorably. The Affordable Care Act helped to insure millions of Americans and prevented people from being discriminated against because of their pre-existing conditions, yet it remains under threat.  

American law is being distorted due to blatant activists like these on the bench. The public deserves a fair-minded judiciary, not one that seeks to force a far-right ideology on the entire country.