Democratic Minnesota lawmakers are defending the Affordable Care Act (ACA) ahead of oral arguments today in the Texas v. United States lawsuit–which alleges that the ACA is unconstitutional. U-S Senator Tina Smith says “the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress, after trying and failing over and over again to repeal to the Affordable Care Act in Congress, have taken their fights to the courts and their goal is nothing less than invalidating the entire law.” The lawsuit was filed in 2018 by 20 Republican state officials–with the support of the Trump administration. Smith says if the law is repealed, it would have a “devastating” effect on Minnesotans: “265,000 people would lose their health insurance and nearly 80% of those over 206,000 would lose the health insurance they rely on through Medicaid.” 2nd District Congresswoman Angie Craig says that repealing the ACA would be “catastrophic” and adds: “what Texas vs the U-S makes clear is that we must stop playing politics with healthcare in this country. We have to move past viewing strengthening the current healthcare system as a win for any political party.” If the appeals court upholds the ruling, an estimated 20-million people could lose insurance coverage and protections for people with pre-existing conditions would go away.