U.S. District in Texas, Judge Reed O’Connor (Fort Worth) has agreed with a coalition of 19 states that Obamacare is structurally unconstitutional without an enforced federal mandate that requires individual participation. (full ruling pdf below)

Absent the enforcement of the individual mandate, Judge O’Conner ruled it was impossible for the Obamacare law to remain. Texas and the 19 state coalition successfully argued they’ve been harmed by an increase in the number of people on state-funded insurance rolls.

The plaintiffs argued: when Congress repealed the tax penalty last year for the individual mandate; they eliminated the U.S. Supreme Court’s prior rationale for finding the ACA constitutional in 2012. The Texas judge agreed.

Judge O’Conner found it is clear the individual mandate is the linchpin of the law “without marching through every nook and cranny of the ACA’s 900-plus pages. The court must find the individual mandate inseverable from the ACA,” he said. “To find otherwise would be to introduce an entirely new regulatory scheme never intended by Congress or signed by the president.”

Here’s the ruling:

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