First thing’s first: As the title of this story states, the Texas court’s decision to strike down Obamacare was a lawless act of partisan idiocy, and will hopefully be reversed upon appeal. There is no silver lining in taking healthcare away from 20 million people.
That all said, this is the hand we’ve been dealt, and fortunately, we know how to play it now.
As Bloomberg reports today, the case is likely to stretch into 2020, and possibly beyond if it reaches the Supreme Court. That means that it will be the defining issue of the 2020 elections (well, beyond Trump’s brain rot and treason), and it could mean a lot of trouble for the GOP. Healthcare was the top issue in 2018 and voters broke overwhelmingly for Democrats on the subject, helping them take back the House and, notably, expand Medicaid even in three red states.
One of those states was Nebraska, where voters enacted Medicaid expansion via ballot initiative despite years of the GOP-controlled state legislature’s refusal to do so. Once implemented, an additional 90,000 people in Nebraska will have healthcare. That’s not a benefit they’re going to want to give up. And that puts Sen. Ben Sasse, who is up for re-election in 2020, in a perilous situation.