Rep. Sylvia Garcia on the 5th Circuit’s Texas v. United States Decision

WASHINGTON, DC — Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia (TX-29) issued the following statement in response to the 5^th Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Texas v. United States, which struck down the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) individual mandate and referred it back to a district court in Texas to determine how much of the law can stand if the individual mandate is undone:

"This lawsuit is a vicious ploy by Republicans to take away healthcare from millions of people across the country, and it's being led by no other than Ken Paxton, the Texas Attorney General. He is wasting Texas tax dollars in fighting to take away healthcare away from millions. It is a slap in the face to the hard-working Texas that stand to lose their healthcare.

In my home state, there are nearly 11.9 million people with preexisting conditions that would be affected by repealing the ACA. More than 1.7 million Texans are at risk of losing their health insurance, of which 655k are Latinos.

Republicans failed to repeal the ACA legislatively, so they turned to the courts to rip healthcare away from millions of Americans. While our fight to protect the ACA is not over, we need to make sure that Ken Paxton and Republicans know that we will not allow them to risk the well-being of millions of Americans. This is a matter of life or death, and we won't stop fighting."

Congresswoman Sylvia R. Garcia was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in November 2018, becoming the first Latina ever to represent Texas 29th Congressional district.