In a court filing Monday, the Justice Department shifted its legal position on the Affordable Care Act, asking the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to strike down the entire 2010 law, commonly known as ObamaCare. In December, U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor in Texas ruled that ObamaCare became effectively unconstitutional when Republicans zeroed-out the individual mandate in their 2017 tax overhaul. In Monday's filing, the DOJ said it had "determined that the district court's judgment should be affirmed."
"The Department of Justice has determined that the district court's comprehensive opinion came to the correct conclusion and will support it on appeal," spokeswoman Kerri Kupec underscored in a statement. Previously, President Trump's Justice Department had argued for scrapping ObamaCare's protections for pre-existing conditions but not the rest of the law. When the Trump DOJ declined to defend ObamaCare in court, a group of 21 Democratic state attorneys general stepped in, and House Democrats also threw legal support behind the law after winning the House.
Many legal scholars, including conservatives, doubt O'Connor's ruling will stand. If it's upheld, it "would potentially eliminate health care for millions of people and create widespread disruption across the U.S. health-care system — from removing no-charge preventive services for older Americans on Medicare to voiding the expansion of Medicaid in most states," The Washington Post notes. The Trump administration advocating that chaos "could prove to be a gift for Democrats," Bloomberg News suggests.
The Justice Department asking the courts to strike down ObamaCare is "crazy" and "legally untenable," Washington and Lee University law professor emeritus Timothy Jost tells the Post. "It would be like invalidating the Interstate Highway System, causing chaos on an unimaginable scale. It's conceivable that the entire Medicare payment system would collapse." The DOJ's new position looks like "a strictly political decision, not a legal decision," he added. "Trump has wanted to get rid of the ACA, and I guess he sees an opportunity here." Peter Weber
Blaze Eppinger is an open book, sharing his story about living with sickle cell disease in order to inspire kids going through the same thing.
Eppinger is an advocate for people with sickle cell, and works as a counselor and administrator at a camp run by the Sickle Cell Foundation of Georgia. He gives advice to the campers, answering their questions about how to explain sickle cell to others, and motivating them to live life to the fullest. As a kid, Eppinger wanted to attend the camp, and being able to work there as an adult is a dream. "It was timed perfectly," he told The Week. "I'm at the camp like I wanted to be as a child, but in a different capacity. Maybe if I had gone as a child, I wouldn't have come back as an adult."
Wednesday was World Sickle Cell Day, which aims to raise awareness of sickle cell. About 100,000 people in the United States have sickle cell disease, and 90 percent are of African descent. When a person has a sickle cell disorder, their red blood cells become stiff and sickle shaped, which can block blood flow, leading to a painful sickle cell crisis. When people have a crisis, they go to the hospital for blood transfusions, and if their type is not available, they have to wait until it is delivered.
That's why Eppinger is also an advocate for blood donation, working with the Red Cross to bring attention to the fact that only three out of 100 people in the U.S. give blood. Through the Missing Types campaign, people with rare blood types are encouraged to donate, so they can help people like Eppinger and the kids he works with at camp. "It only takes 10 minutes to acquire the blood, and one bag can help three people," Eppinger said. "It doesn't take long to make a difference in someone's life." Catherine Garcia
Doctors at Planned Parenthood of St. Louis, the only abortion clinic still operating in Missouri, will no longer perform two pelvic exams on patients, as mandated by the state earlier this month, CBS News reports.
Missouri's Republican-led government enacted a rule that forced doctors to perform a pelvic exam on women 72 hours before they have an abortion; already, doctors conduct pelvic exams right before the procedure. The clinic's medical director, Dr. David Eisenberg, told CBS News on Wednesday that after performing these extra exams over the last few weeks, "I have new evidence to say that 100 percent of the patients who I've taken care of who've undergone this inappropriate, medically unnecessary, unethical pelvic exam have been harmed by that. Because to do so, in my opinion, is just assault."
The doctors consider the pelvic exam conducted right before an abortion to be medically relevant, and will continue the practice. Last month, Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit after Missouri's Department of Health and Senior Services refused to make a decision over whether to renew the clinic's license. A preliminary injunction is keeping the doors open, and a judge gave the state until this Friday to decide about the license. Catherine Garcia
Andrea Thompson, the State Department official responsible for U.S. arms control negotiations with Moscow and a former national security adviser to Vice President Mike Pence, did not disclose to lawmakers during her confirmation process last year that she had a years-long friendship with Republican operative Paul Erickson, the ex-boyfriend of convicted unregistered Russian agent Maria Butina, The Washington Post reports.
Thompson, the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security affairs, also didn't reveal the relationship to her supervisors, the Post's Josh Rogin writes; three administration officials said she only told them this week after Rogin approached her about the matter.
In 2017, Erickson officiated Thompson's wedding to David Gillian, a former senior Australian army officer. Erickson's attorney said Butina attended as her former boyfriend's guest. At the time, Thompson was Pence's national security adviser. About six months later, news broke about Erickson and Butina being linked to Russian influence operations in the United States.
Thompson holds top security clearances, and she should have revealed her ties to the couple, several administration officials told Rogin. "When the person who marries you gets into trouble with the Russians and your job is to negotiate with the Russians, you have to disclose that," one person said. "Everybody with an intelligence clearance knows that." Rogin notes that there is no evidence that Thompson and her husband had any major interactions with Butina outside of their wedding, and that Thompson purposely was untruthful to lawmakers during her confirmation process. For more on the relationship, and Erickson's alleged theft of $100,000 from Gillian, visit The Washington Post. Catherine Garcia
Mark Hamill came up with a plan to get people to stop vandalizing President Trump's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: give it to his Star Wars co-star Carrie Fisher.
Hamill tweeted the idea on Wednesday morning, after sharing an article from 2018 about the West Hollywood City Council voting to ask the Los Angeles City Council and Hollywood Chamber of Commerce to remove Trump's star, which he received for his work producing beauty pageants. Vandals regularly spray paint and take pickaxes to Trump's star, but that's not enough to get it permanently replaced, Hollywood Chamber of Commerce spokeswoman Ana Martinez told the Los Angeles Times. "We don't remove stars," she said. "The stars are part of the history of the Walk of Fame."
Fisher died in 2016, and under the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce's rules, "the application has to be submitted on the fifth anniversary of her death," Martinez said. She threw even more cold water on the idea of a Carrie Fisher star, saying her family or estate would have to submit a written agreement saying they want a star for Fisher, plus pay $50,000 for the star and its assorted costs. "Also, how do we know that Carrie Fisher wanted one?" Martinez said. "We don't know if she ever was interested. She was never submitted for a star." Catherine Garcia
As part of an investigation into the unexplained deaths of nine American tourists over the last 13 months in the Dominican Republic, the FBI is testing samples taken from a minibar at one of the hotels where some of the Americans stayed, Dominican officials told CNN on Wednesday.
The samples were taken from the Bahia Principe Hotel. Ministry of Health communications director Carlos Suero told CNN that whenever a person dies in a Dominican hotel room, authorities test samples collected from the room's minibar, sink, and shower for bacteria.
In several cases, families of the deceased have said their loved one had a drink from the minibar before their death. Dominican officials are adamant that these were isolated cases and there's no reason for worried people to cancel their vacations. Catherine Garcia
The Trump administration wants to do away with the Office of Personnel Management, and will furlough 150 workers if Congress tries to intervene, The Washington Post reports.
The agency manages the government's civilian workforce. The Trump administration says it is a troubled department that needs to be dismantled, and it wants Congress to kill the department by June 30. Congress isn't on board with the plan, more than a year in the making. An internal briefing document obtained by the Post shows that if Congress balks, employees will be sent home without pay on Oct. 1, and after 30 days, they could be laid off. More than 5,500 people work in the department, and the Post reports that dozens of workers have retired or quit in recent months because they're not sure what will happen come October.
The Government Accountability Office, a federal watchdog, released a report this week concluding that if the agency is shuttered, it would increase, not ease, a retirement claims backlog. The Trump administration wants to divide the agency among three other departments, and acting OPM Director Margaret Weichert told the Post that "a legislative solution would be the most straightforward answer, but we've made it very clear we can't wait without action." Weichert, three officials told the Post, has told staffers that she is "planning to play chicken with Congress." Catherine Garcia