In a case that could have significant political ramifications for the 2020 election and beyond, the US Supreme Court has decided to agree to hearings on whether Obamacare is lawful:

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a politically explosive case on whether Obamacare is lawful, taking up a bid by 20 Democratic-led states including California and New York to preserve the landmark healthcare law.

The impetus for the Supreme Court case was a 2018 ruling by a federal judge in Texas that Obamacare as currently structured in light of a key Republican-backed change made by Congress violates the U.S. Constitution and is invalid in its entirety. The ruling came in a legal challenge to the law by Texas and 17 other conservative states backed by President Donald Trump’s administration.

After this announcement, I decided to check out what MSNBC said about the issue because Obamacare is, of course, Obama’s signature issue that will be vigorously defended by the Left forever. In 2012, the Supreme Court previously determined that healthcare penalties issued to people who failed to participate in Obamacare are “taxes.” This latest challenge is much more serious, and of course, the political makeup of the Supreme Court has changed bigly since that 2012 decision. Here is some dialog from MSNBC on the breaking news:

Pete Williams (MSNBC’s Justice correspondent): This is a bit of a surprise here because remember that late last year a federal appeals court said Obamacare is unconstitutional because of the individual mandate, but it sent the case back to a judge in Texas to decide if any parts of the law could be saved. A number of states led by California urged the Supreme Court to take it on a fast track and hear the case this term. Now the court has already said no to that, but today the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. So to timing, this case will be argued next term – in the term that begins in October. But it seems unlikely that the case will be decided before the election. It means that Obamacare will be with us for at least another year or year-and-a-half … no decision from the Supreme Court on it … they’re not going to decide it until perhaps June of 2021. Of course, the question here is, is the individual mandate unconstitutional. The court has upheld it as a matter of taxing policy, but then the Congress set the tax at zero, so Texas and a number of Red States said it’s not a tax anymore, so you have to get rid of it.

Note that Democrat states led by California wanted this case fast-tracked this year, likely for two reasons:

• The makeup of the Supreme Court is the most favorable that it will ever be for Democrats, as a second term for President Trump would mean at least one if not two more Supreme Court nominations. This year is their best shot to obtain a favorable ruling to keep Obamacare in place.
• The other reason is to enable the usual Democrat demagoguing on nationalized healthcare throughout the 2020 campaign.

With the likely final decision put deferred until the summer of 2021, there is an increasing likelihood that the Supreme Court will finally rule that Obamacare is unconstitutional, i.e., mandating participation in a federal program is a blatant attack on individual freedoms enshrined in the Constitution. The Left will fight at all costs to preserve Obamacare as a step toward their goal of foisting single-payer government-run healthcare on Americans.

The end.