The
Affordable
Care
Act
—
you
might
know
it
as
Obamacare
—
is
the
most
challenged
statute
in
American
history.
More
than
2,000
lawsuits
have
attacked
the
ACA,
including
seven
that
made
it
to
the
U.S.
Supreme
Court
over
the
course
of
its
first
10
years.
What
has
all
of
this
legal
wrangling
accomplished?
Close
to
nothing,
if
what
you
mean
by
an
“accomplishment”
is
a
lawsuit
achieving
one
or
more
of
its
stated
goals.
There
have
been
a
few
judicial
modifications
around
the
edges
of
Obamacare.
The
penalty
for
the
ACA’s
individual
mandate
has
fallen.
Yet,
for
the
most
part,
the
law
has
proven
astoundingly
resilient
to
years
of
prolonged
legal
warfare.
Of
course,
as
any
good
lawyer
can
tell
you,
the
effects
of
an
individual
lawsuit
often
ripple
far
beyond
the
intentions
of
the
original
parties.
The
precedents
established
by
more
than
a
decade
of
lawfare
against
the
ACA
have
had
a
huge
impact
on
constitutional
law,
statutory
interpretation,
and
federalism.
More
broadly,
using
ACA
litigation
as
a
political
cudgel
will
go
down
in
history
as
a
catastrophic
failure.
By
demonizing
a
dizzyingly
complex
law
known
to
many
as
“Obamacare,”
Republicans
saw
an
opportunity
to
undermine
their
opponents
on
the
left.
For
a
relatively
short
time,
blaming
every
problem
within
a
reviled
health
care
system
on
Obamacare
seemed
to
pay
dividends
in
opinion
polls.
Ultimately,
though,
the
strategy
backfired.
Challenging
the
ACA
so
unrelentingly
drew
media
attention
and
actually
helped
Americans
better
understand
the
substantial
benefits
of
the
law.
After
an
initial
dip
following
its
passage,
public
support
for
the
ACA
climbed
steadily
as
more
and
more
lawsuits
against
it
were
filed,
to
the
point
where
a
Congress
wholly
controlled
by
Republicans
was
unable
to
repeal
the
ACA
during
Donald
Trump’s
first
presidential
term
in
defiance
of
his
repeated
campaign
promises.
For
real
patients,
its
ability
to
withstand
the
legal
onslaught
allowed
the
ACA
to
protect
a
generation
of
Americans
with
preexisting
conditions
from
the
most
gruesome
whims
of
the
private
health
insurance
marketplace.
The
ACA
presents
the
most
iconic
example
of
overly
exuberant
litigation
for
perceived
political
gain,
but
it
is
not
the
only
one.
Nor
is
this
a
problem
confined
to
the
right
end
of
the
political
spectrum.
For
instance,
there
is
practically
a
cottage
industry
of
left-wing
interest
groups
with
no
other
purpose
than
to
sue
government
agencies
as
a
way
of
trying
to
block
just
about
every
project
that
could
conceivably
have
any
effect
whatsoever
on
the
environment.
The
National
Environmental
Policy
Act
is
a
primary
means
of
doing
this,
although
there
are
many
others.
Obviously
certain
proposed
projects
that
would
be
environmental
disasters
can
and
should
be
challenged,
but
NEPA’s
broadness
lets
just
about
anyone
with
just
about
any
grievance
sue,
and
sue
they
do,
over
everything
from
wind
turbines
to
interstate
highways.
This
is
one
of
the
main
reasons
why
it
costs
so
much
more
to
build
anything
in
this
country
than
it
does
almost
anywhere
else
on
earth.
In
America,
every
project
needs
to
build
into
its
cost
the
large
expense
of
defending
a
NEPA
lawsuit.
Whether
you’re
trying
to
stop
people
from
getting
health
care
or
whining
about
a
windmill,
these
lawsuits
are
largely
performative.
You
get
to
seem
like
you’re
fighting
without
winning
the
real
fight,
which
is
convincing
enough
of
your
peers
that
you
are
right
so
that
you
don’t
have
to
single-handedly
stand
in
the
way
of
whatever
form
of
progress
the
majority
of
voters
apparently
chose
to
support
in
the
last
election.
The
only
people
who
win
in
extreme
political
lawfare
are
the
lawyers.
Everyone
else
just
gets
way
more
expensive
public
works
projects.
Don’t
fruitlessly
donate
your
money
to
lawyers
who
don’t
need
it
anyway.
Look,
I’m
not
saying
that
there
is
never
an
important
NEPA
lawsuit
or
that
it’s
uncalled
for
to
ever
challenge
a
major
federal
law.
We
just
have
to
become
way,
way
more
judicious
about
bringing
these
suits.
Wouldn’t,
like,
five
lawsuits
against
Obamacare
have
been
enough
instead
of
2,000?
You
don’t
have
to
love
everything
that’s
happening
to
decline
to
sue
someone
whenever
you’re
upset.
Maybe
you
can
try
to
focus
on
the
merits
of
a
particular
project,
or
at
the
very
least
accept
that
it
represents
the
will
of
a
majority
of
the
people
irrespective
of
your
own
political
position.
Hell,
if
you’re
a
donor
to
an
organization
that
regularly
pursues
these
sorts
of
lawsuits,
perhaps
you
could
even
consider
whether
your
money
would
be
better
spent
tackling
the
underlying
issue
rather
than
paying
lawyers
to
blab
about
it.
If
you
hate
wind
turbines,
fine,
maybe
invest
the
money
in
some
other
form
of
energy
production.
There
are
about
to
be
a
lot
of
proposals
coming
down
the
federal
pipeline
that
Democrats,
and
Americans
in
general,
won’t
like.
When
they
do,
we
ought
to
learn
the
lesson
of
Republicans
and
the
ACA:
we
cannot
sue
our
way
out
of
this.
Trying
to
will
only
backfire.
Jonathan
Wolf
is
a
civil
litigator
and
author
of Your
Debt-Free
JD
(affiliate
link).
He
has
taught
legal
writing,
written
for
a
wide
variety
of
publications,
and
made
it
both
his
business
and
his
pleasure
to
be
financially
and
scientifically
literate.
Any
views
he
expresses
are
probably
pure
gold,
but
are
nonetheless
solely
his
own
and
should
not
be
attributed
to
any
organization
with
which
he
is
affiliated.
He
wouldn’t
want
to
share
the
credit
anyway.
He
can
be
reached
at [email protected].