President Donald Trump late Friday applauded a federal judge’s ruling in Texas that ruled former President Barack Obama’s signature health-care law was unconstitutional, and called on Congress to replace the current mandate with a new bill.
Although a repeal and replace effort failed in the Senate, Trump was able to dismantle key parts of the law, and several health policy researchers have blamed his actions for much of the drop in enrollment this year.
Sign-ups on the federal health insurance marketplace have been low this season, tumbling 11.7 percent from the same time last year, according to the latest figures from Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Democratic California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who led a group states in intervening to defend Obamacare, called the decision “an assault on 133 million Americans with preexisting conditions, on the 20 million Americans who rely on the ACA’s consumer protections for healthcare.”