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Obamacare is central to conservative division on Brett Kavanaugh. Though President Trump’s pick of Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court has been broadly praised among the conservative legal establishment, it has produced its share of grumbles among other conservatives. Part of the division is based more on intangible cultural factors. Though nobody would question his credentials, there’s fear among a subset of conservatives that as a Washington insider and former Bush administration lawyer, Kavanaugh could turn out to be overly cautious and fearful about upsetting elites, thus upholding unconstitutional laws and sustaining bad precedents.

Though Kavanaugh’s hundreds of decisions in a dozen years as an appellate judge have been broadly conservative (particularly when it comes to reining in the regulatory state), there is one decision in particular that has divided conservatives — his dissenting opinion in an Obamacare case brought to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2011. This has triggered a debate over whether Kavanaugh could be another Chief Justice John Roberts, who the Right still does not forgive for upholding Obamacare.

In the Seven-Sky v. Holder case, a forerunner to the landmark Supreme Court ruling, a three judge panel decided 2-1 that Obamacare’s individual mandate was constitutional. While Kavanaugh dissented from the main opinion, he did not go as far as declaring Obamacare unconstitutional. Instead, he argued that the court was not yet in a position to hear the case, because under an arcane 19th Century law known as the Tax Anti-Injunction Act, courts could not hear challenges to a tax that had not been collected yet, and thus any decision would have to wait until 2015, when taxpayers had to file mandate penalties for the first time. In summary, Kavanaugh didn’t uphold Obamacare, but he did not take the opportunity to strike it down, either.

The argument over Kavanaugh’s Obamacare opinion is likely to play a central role in the debate over his jurisprudence in the months ahead, particularly as another case challenging the law makes its way through the courts.

Read a more detailed analysis  here.

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Trump nominates Brett Kavanaugh to Supreme Court. President Trump has nominated federal appeals court Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court, he announced in a prime-time event Monday. Kavanaugh, 53, is tapped to fill retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy’s seat, and if he is confirmed by the Senate, the Supreme Court’s ideological tilt is expected to shift solidly to the right.

Six senators to watch in the battle over Trump’s Supreme Court pick. The president’s choice of Kavanaugh to serve as the next justice on the Supreme Court sets off a months-long confirmation process that will ultimately be decided by a critical group of senators. In a Senate with 50 voting Republicans and 49 who vote as Democrats, Kavanaugh can be scuttled if just one Republican votes “no,” but can be saved if every “no” from a Republican is met with at least one “yes” by a Democrat. That places centrist Republicans and Democrats running for reelection in red states in a difficult spot.

Abortion and Obamacare already major factors in the battle to confirm Kavanaugh. The battle over President Trump’s Supreme Court pick began soon after Kennedy announced his retirement last month. Abortion rights groups and Obamacare advocacy groups have clamored that any pick from Trump would come from his short list of 25 candidates and would work to overturn Roe v. Wade and peel back Obamacare’s protections for pre-existing conditions. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., already is pivoting towards what Kavanaugh thinks of Obamacare as a key reason for any decision he makes on the nominee. On the other side, anti-abortion groups were immediately cheering the pick, despite misgivings from some social conservative groups when Kavanaugh was being considered. “Tonight is good news for the pro-life movement,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List. Kavanaugh though has made some rulings that could give anti-abortion groups pause, saying that he would

Anti-abortion groups are plotting strategy to pressure vulnerable Democrats. Susan B. Anthony List unveiled campaign to put pressure on vulnerable Democratic senators up for re-election this fall to ensure support for President Trump’s Supreme Court pick. The group declared Monday, nearly an hour President Trump selected federal appeals court judge Brett Kavanaugh to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy, that on Tuesday they plan to pressure three Democratic senators that voted for Justice Neil Gorsuch last year: Manchin, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Donnelly of Indiana. All three senators are facing tough re-election races this fall in states that Trump won in 2016. “We will be doing press events to start there tomorrow and we will do more throughout the duration of the summer,” said SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser during a call with reporters. “We planned to target senators that made sense because of their former votes for Gorsuch who were Democrats.” The anti-abortion group Students for Life of America said that it will announce a strategic campaign aimed at key states that include North Dakota, Indiana, West Virginia, Maine, Missouri, Alaska, and Florida. “We are prepared for the ground game of this confirmation,” said Kristan Hawkins, the group’s president.

Kavanaugh’s nomination ignites fast criticism from abortion rights groups. Top abortion rights groups came out quickly against announced opposition President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Abortion rights groups have been targeting members of Trump’s short list of nominees, noting that Trump is seeking to appoint judges that will overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide. “We already know how Brett Kavanaugh would rule on Roe v. Wade, because the president told us so,” said Dawn Laguens, executive vice president at the Planned Parenthood Federation of America in a statement released seconds after Trump’s announcement on Monday.

Pharma lobbyist and former Sen. Jon Kyl to sherpa Trump’s Supreme Court pick through the Senate.  A former Republican senator will help Kavanaugh through the Senate confirmation process, the White House announced Monday. “Former Sen. Jon Kyl has agreed to serve as the sherpa for the president’s nominee to the Supreme Court,” said White House spokesman Raj Shah. Kyl was in the Senate from 1995 to 2013, when he retired as the Senate minority whip, the No. 2 Republican. During his time in the Senate, Kyl served on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will oversee the confirmation hearings for Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court. Kyl was on the panel during the confirmations of four of the last five Supreme Court justices, and is now senior of counsel at Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C., where he lobbied on behalf of drug companies.

Once eyed as a tool for fighting Obamacare, state waivers hit limitations. A provision of Obamacare that opponents once saw as a potential loophole allowing a Republican president to unravel the law by executive order is now being used by some states to steady their shaky Obamacare markets. Since the inception of Obamacare, “state innovation waivers,” which ostensibly provide states with some flexibility to experiment with different ways to provide healthcare for their residents, were eyed by those seeking to repeal the law.

HHS Secretary Alex Azar: New round of drug price hikes a ‘tipping point.’ President Trump’s top health official said “change is coming” to drug pricing in the wake of a new round of price hikes. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar’s comments followed Trump’s tweet at Pfizer for raising drug prices last week on more than 40 products, more than a month after Trump said that drug companies would voluntarily lower drug prices “in two weeks.”

Azar said Monday “the drug companies that recently increased prices will be remembered for creating a tipping point in U.S. drug pricing policy.” He then referenced Trump’s tweet, stressing the “American people have noticed.” “Change is coming to prescription drug pricing, whether it’s painful or not for pharmaceutical companies,” said Azar at the 340B Coalition summer meeting in Washington. The coalition is a group of hospitals and providers that support the drug discount program called 340B.

Trump signs bill to help grandparents raising kids. A measure that would provide resources to grandparents raising their grandchildren has been signed into law by President Trump. The Supporting Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Act, which cleared the Senate unanimously in June and was introduced by Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Bob Casey, D-Pa., will create a federal task force that will set up a one-stop shop of resources for roughly 2.6 million grandparents in the U.S. who are raising grandchildren. Many of these grandparents have been caring for their grandchildren as a result of the opioid crisis, taking on caregiving roles as their own children work through their addictions and treatments. The resources the federal government will make available will include information about legal custody, social services, and mental health counseling, according to AARP, which supported the bill.

Ben Rhodes: Obama’s team ‘misjudged’ strength of opposition to Obamacare. Former national security adviser Ben Rhodes said Tuesday that the Obama administration misjudged how tough it would be to pass Obamacare, and how the proposal would deepen the political divide between Republicans and Democrats. “We certainly misjudged how difficult the ACA would be,” he said on CSPAN. “I think the feeling was that this will be a few month process. Frankly, it ended up dragging on for almost a full year, and just consumed the political debate.” He said Obama’s team also didn’t see how the bill would split the two parties even further. “We at a minimum definitely underestimated the opposition that it would engender, the time that it would take,” Rhodes said. “There’s certain priorities we didn’t get to those first two years that we still hear about from certain constituency groups that I’m sympathetic to like immigration reform. I think maybe what we did is we misjudged the difficulty of just getting that through.”

Fitness app revealed ‘potentially disastrous’ info about US troops: Report. U.S. service members have again been put at risk by a GPS-enabled fitness app that published a trove of mapping data and personal information on troops, according to a report. The Polar app allows users to track movements of troops and other U.S. personnel on secretive sites, identify their homes and see their movements around the globe going back to 2014, a joint investigation between Bellingcat and the Dutch journalism site De Correspondent found. The company said it has temporarily suspended the feature due to the concerns.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signs executive order to safeguard abortions and contraceptive coverage. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order Monday to safeguard abortions and contraceptive coverage in the state, amid concern that President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee would seek to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that made abortion legal nationwide. The executive order updates Department of Financial Services and Department of Health regulations to require insurers cover emergency contraception, and allows women to obtain 12-month supplies of contraceptives at once without co-insurance, co-pays, or deductibles. The order also requires that voluntary sterilization and over-the-counter contraceptives be covered without cost-sharing. Cuomo said the order “protects a woman’s right to choose, protects a woman’s right to contraceptive care – no insurance company can deny it, no bureaucracy can deny it and no federal agency can deny it.”

Maine legislature upholds governor’s Medicaid expansion veto. The Maine legislature has failed to override Republican Gov. Paul LePage’s veto of Medicaid expansion in the Pine Tree State. The 85-58 vote cast Monday was short of the two-thirds majority needed to force through the funding bill lawmakers had passed earlier to expand Medicaid. The expansion would have been funded mostly by the federal government, but also with an additional $60 million in state funds. The state Supreme Court will also be weighing in on the decision next week, however. Voters in November passed Medicaid expansion through a ballot measure that had the support of 59 percent of voters. Under the law, Maine was supposed to submit an application for expansion to the federal government by April 3 and have the program expanded by July 2. Advocates sued after Maine missed its deadline.

WHO stops short of recognizing sex addiction. Failure to control urges to have sex has been recognized as a medical disorder for the first time by the World Health Organization. But health officials stopped short of classifying the illness in the same category as “addictive and substance use disorders,” as WHO recently did with gaming disorder. They are not using the term “sex addiction” to describe the illness, as some advocates have called for, but are calling it “compulsive sexual behavior disorder.” WHO places the ailment in the same category as “impulse control disorders,” which include other ailments such as kleptomania, when people steal compulsively without motive, and pyromania, when people compulsively set fires.

Among smokers, cigarettes are still more popular than e-cigarettes, new poll found. A majority of U.S. smokers still prefer traditional cigarettes after trying vaping, a new poll found. A poll from Morning Consult released Monday found that 57 percent of habitual smokers who tried vaping still prefer smoking. In addition, only 12 percent of U.S. adults have vaped, or still do, compared with 44 percent who smoke traditional cigarettes or currently do. The data shows that 22 percent of Americans prefer vaping, while 14 percent like both habits equally.

FDA green lights freeze-dried plasma for U.S. troops. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday it has granted the Pentagon an emergency authorization to use freeze-dried plasma to save U.S. troops wounded in combat. The decision gives the military a potentially life-saving treatment when troops are in danger of bleeding out from bullet or blast wounds, and comes after a political dust-up on Capitol Hill last year that threatened to hold-up a must-pass defense authorization bill. The Pentagon has been lobbying for years for permission to use the freeze-dried blood component, which was developed by the French military. But it has not cleared the lengthy U.S. regulatory process for such products.

RUNDOWN

Axios Where the money stands in ACA risk adjustment

The Hill Dems’ strategy on SCOTUS pick: Unify around healthcare

Chicago Tribune Live in a Chicago neighborhood with a high violent crime rate? Your odds of obesity, hypertension are higher, study finds.

Charleston Gazette-Mail HD Media, Washington Post ask judge to release pain pill data

Politico Latest Obamacare shakeup could fuel rate hikes

Associated Press Trump said that U.S. had opposed formula limits, not breastfeeding

NPR Scientists find new tricks for old drugs