AUSTIN – Attorney General Ken Paxton today commended a U.S. District Court decision ordering the Internal Revenue Service to repay Texas and five other states more than $839 million because of an unlawful Obamacare tax on state Medicaid programs.
Of that total amount, Texas stands to be repaid $304,730,608. “Obamacare is unconstitutional, plain and simple,” Attorney General Paxton said. “We all know that the feds cannot tax the states, and we’re proud to return this illegally collected money to the people of Texas.”
In October 2015, Attorney General Paxton led a multistate lawsuit against the federal government over the Obama-era regulation that threatened to choke off Medicaid funds for the health needs of millions of Texas citizens unless Texas taxpayers paid a portion of the Health Insurance Providers Fee to help fund Obamacare.
The court’s decision also means that five other states stand to be repaid Obamacare fees by the IRS: Indiana ($94,801,483), Kansas ($142,121,776), Louisiana ($172,493,095), Wisconsin ($88,938,850) and Nebraska ($36,238,918).
Texas and Wisconsin will argue at a hearing on September 5 that Obamacare, as amended by the recent tax bill, is unconstitutional in its entirety.
