the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Trenton NJ, Governor Phil Murphy today signed a package of bills to safeguard the provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in New Jersey. The bills, which will codify into state law the basic protections for health care consumers that are part of the Affordable Care Act, include protections for no-cost preventative care and contraception, prohibit exclusions for pre-existing conditions, allow children to stay on their parents’ plan until age 26, and incorporate mental health and maternity care as part of essential benefits, among others. The Governor highlighted the importance of these bills during an armchair discussion with Hackensack Meridian Health Chief Executive Officer Bob Garret.

“At a time when the Affordable Care Act is under siege by the Trump Administration and being challenged in the courts, New Jersey has a responsibility to protect and provide access to high-quality, affordable health care for all of our residents,” said Governor Murphy. “I applaud my colleagues in the Legislature for taking the critical steps necessary to ensure that the provisions of the Affordable Health Care Act.

On June 28, 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld key provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) after 26 states had challenged its constitutionality in lower courts.The Supreme court rejected the claim that the individual mandate was within Congress’s commerce power, the mandate was found to be constitutional as a tax [9]. The penalty, though not labeled a tax in the ACA, is similar in several ways to other taxes. Its amount is determined by income, number of dependents, and filing status, and it is paid into the treasury when filing income tax.

Democrats running for president have said they would support extending government health care coverage to undocumented immigrants ,yet want US citizens to pay the Obamacare tax .