Analyzing the ACA Decision: Friday Night Lights Meets Texas Chainsaw Massacre

The commentariat of the health law and policy world scrambled the jets and armed their opinion weapons on Friday night when news broke: A federal district court judge in Texas had ruled the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate had, once again, been found unconstitutional and declared the remaining provisions of the law inseverable and therefore invalid. (The first holding actually has happened three times before, in other federal district courts, followed by different mixes of full inseverability, partial severability, and full severability, respectively.)