Trump administration asks US Supreme Court to axe Obamacare, citing previous Congress move

President Donald Trump’s administration has asked the US Supreme Court to invalidate the Obamacare law introduced by his predecessor.

Government advocate Noel Francisco argued in a filing late on Thursday that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) became invalid after the previous, Republican-led Congress axed parts of it, Reuters reports. ACA is seen as one of former President Barack Obama’s signature achievements.

“Nothing the 2017 Congress did demonstrates it would have intended the rest of the ACA to continue to operate in the absence of these three integral provisions,” said Francisco, who leads the Justice Department’s Office of the Solicitor General. “Once the individual mandate and the guaranteed-issue and community-rating provisions are invalidated, the remainder of the ACA cannot survive.”

The legal push is likely to be an important political battleground in the presidential election.