The decision came a little more than 24 hours before the sign-up period for 2019 Obamacare coverage is set to close. | Joe Raedle/Getty Images HEALTH CARE Judge rules Obamacare unconstitutional, endangering coverage for 20 million Democrats decried the decision as reckless and urged an appeals court to overturn it, while also tying it to the GOP’s broader efforts to eliminate the ACA. 
 
 A federal judge in Texas threw the health coverage of some 20 million Americans in limbo by ruling Obamacare must be scrapped because Congress struck the penalty for failing to obtain insurance coverage. 
 
 The invalidation of the landmark 2010 law is certain to send shock waves through the U.S. health system and Washington after a midterm election seen in part as a rebuke to Republican efforts to tear down Obamacare. 
 
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 “Wow, but not surprisingly, ObamaCare was just ruled UNCONSTITUTIONAL by a highly respected judge in Texas,” President Donald Trump wrote in a tweet celebrating the verdict. “Great news for America!” 
 
 The decision will be immediately appealed, said California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who led several blue states in intervening to defend the ACA. It could ultimately become the third major Obamacare case to be taken up by the Supreme Court, which has twice voted to uphold the law. 
 
 U.S. District Court Judge Reed O’Connor, a George W. Bush appointee in Fort Worth, Texas, issued the decision gutting the law in response to a lawsuit from 20 conservative-led states that sought to have the Affordable Care Act tossed out. They successfully argued that the mandate penalty was a critical linchpin of the law and that without it, the entire frameworks is rendered unconstitutional. 
 
 “In sum, the Individual Mandate ‘is so interwoven with [the ACA’s] regulations that they cannot be separated. None of them can stand,’” O’Connor wrote. 
 
 The decision came a little more than 24 hours before the sign-up period for 2019 Obamacare coverage is set to close — and roughly a month after voters upset over Republicans’ efforts to repeal and replace the ACA swept House Democrats back into the majority. O’Connor did not issue an injunction, leaving it unclear whether the Trump administration can continue to enforce the ACA in the near term. Obamacare enrollment will continue up to the Saturday deadline, administration officials said. 
 
 "We expect this ruling will be appealed to the Supreme Court. Pending the appeal process, the law remains in place,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement. 
 
 Seema Verma, the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, who oversees Obamacare's insurance marketplaces, tweeted late Friday that Obamacare exchanges are still open for business and that open enrollment will continue. "There is no impact to current coverage or coverage in a 2019 plan," she wrote. 
 
 Democrats late Friday decried the decision as reckless and urged an appeals court to overturn it, while also tying it to the GOP’s broader efforts to eliminate the ACA. 
 
 “Republicans want to gut healthcare. It’s not a talking point, it’s not an exaggeration,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) tweeted on Friday. “For ideological reasons, and because many can’t stand that it’s named Obamacare, they are causing millions to feel anxiety and possibly suffer. Shame on them.” 
 
 Republicans zeroed out the mandate penalty as part of their 2017 overhaul of the tax code, after failing throughout last year to repeal and replace the ACA in full. The penalty is slated to disappear next year. 
 
 The ruling puts the Trump administration and Republican lawmakers in a bind. They've promised to save the health law's pre-existing condition protections if the court threw them out, but for years they've been unable to agree on an alternative that would maintain the law's stringent safeguards. 
 
 Trump on Friday urged Congress to negotiate a bipartisan health care bill that would replace the ACA and protect pre-existing conditions. 
 
 “Now Congress must pass a STRONG law that provides GREAT healthcare and protects pre-existing conditions. Mitch and Nancy, get it done,” he tweeted, referring to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi. 
 
 Yet lawmakers on either side have shown little inclination to compromise on health care. Democrats for months said Republicans would be responsible for any fallout from the verdict since they brought the case in the first place and spent a year trying unsuccessfully to repeal the ACA. 
 
 Some Republicans similarly criticized the lawsuit as unnecessary and “far-fetched,” yet the party has not developed a workable alternative. An August proposal from Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) would have codified some ACA protections outside of the health law. But it was quickly panned after health care analysts said the legislation would do little to ensure protections for people with pre-existing conditions. 
 
 The Justice Department took the unusual stance of partially siding with the conservative states seeking to strike down the federal law. As a result, 16 mostly Democratic-led states intervened in the case to try and save Obamacare. But O’Connor didn’t agree with their argument that by striking the tax penalty but leaving the rest of the federal health care law in place, Congress had clearly indicated its belief that they weren’t inseparable. 
 
 “In some ways, the question before the Court involves the intent of both the 2010 and 2017 Congresses,” O’Connor wrote. “The former enacted the ACA. The latter sawed off the last leg it stood on.” 
 
 Many legal experts are skeptical that the lawsuit will ultimately succeed — including Jonathan Adler, one of the architects of the last major legal challenge to Obamacare. Adler on Friday night tweeted that O’Connor’s opinion was “completely unmoored from the relevant legal authorities and doctrine.” 
 
 But the victory at the lower court level means that there will be a cloud hanging over the future of the law for months, if not years, to come. 
 
 House Democrats, who won back the chamber after campaigning heavily on defending protections for pre-existing conditions, plan to quickly pass a resolution authorizing the House general counsel to defend the health care law on the chamber’s behalf. 
 
 "We will take immediate action in the new Congress to intervene in this case and appeal this decision,” House Ways and Means Committee Democrats said in a statement. “House Democrats will do whatever it takes to make sure the protections enshrined in the Affordable Care Act endure.” 
 
 The Supreme Court upheld Obamacare as constitutional in 2012 and 2015, though the first of those challenges did strike down a provision requiring states to expand their Medicaid programs. Trump appointees Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch have since joined the high court, replacing the late Antonin Scalia and retired Anthony Kennedy. 
 
 Verma told reporters late last month the administration had a backup plan if the court overturned the law. She declined to provide specifics at the time. ||||| A spokesperson from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services told Fox News early Saturday that open enrollment for Affordable Care Act’s health insurance will continue despite the federal judge's ruling that the law is unconstitutional and must be "invalidated in whole.” 
 
 U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor, a federal judge in Texas appointed by President George W. Bush, ruled that last year's tax cut bill knocked the constitutional foundation from under Obamacare by eliminating a penalty for not having coverage. The rest of the law cannot be separated from that provision and is therefore invalid, he wrote. 
 
 The decision came on the evening before the Dec. 15 deadline for Americans. 
 
 The spokesperson from CMS told Fox that the judge’s decision, which was applauded by President Trump, is still working its way through the courts and is not the final word on the matter. 
 
 "There is no impact to current coverage or coverage in a 2019 plan," the spokesperson said. 
 
 Congress is unlikely to act while the case remains in the courts. Numerous high-ranking Republican lawmakers have said they did not intend to also strike down popular provisions such as protection for people with pre-existing medical conditions when they repealed the ACA's fines for people who can afford coverage but remain uninsured. 
 
 Xavier Becerra, the California attorney general, vowed to appeal the decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans. 
 
 "Today’s ruling is an assault on 133 million Americans with pre-existing conditions, on the 20 million Americans who rely on the A.C.A.’s consumer protections for health care, on America’s faithful progress toward affordable health care for all Americans," Becerra said in a statement, obtained by The New York Times. 
 
 Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who is expected to become House speaker in January, vowed to fight what she called an "absurd ruling." 
 
 Trump tweeted his support for the ruling, saying, "Obamacare has been struck down as an UNCONSTITUTIONAL disaster!" He continued, "Now Congress must pass a STRONG law that provides GREAT healthcare and protects pre-existing conditions." 
 
 About 20 million people have gained health insurance coverage since the ACA passed in 2010 without a single Republican vote. Currently, about 10 million have subsidized private insurance through the health law's insurance markets, while an estimated 12 million low-income people are covered through its Medicaid expansion. 
 
 The White House said late Friday that it expects the ruling to be appealed to the Supreme Court. The five justices who upheld the health law in 2012 in the first major case -- Chief Justice John Roberts and the court's four liberals -- are all still serving. 
 
 The Associated Press contributed to this report
– A Texas judge delivered a bombshell ruling on ObamaCare Friday night, declaring that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional. US District Court Judge Reed O'Connor ruled that the individual mandate—the penalty those who forgo insurance must pay—is unconstitutional. And because the individual mandate is so integral to the ACA, the entire ACA is unconstitutional as well, he declared. All of which has lawmakers in both parties, as well as millions of Americans who get their coverage from the ACA, wondering, "Now what?" Here's what we know, including a debate over the legal principle of "severability": What's next: In terms of the immediate future, nothing changes, reports USA Today. Though much uncertainty is now in the mix, the ACA remains in place while this plays out in the courts—perhaps even at the Supreme Court, for the third time—and the process could take months, if not years. Those insured under the ACA, including those who just enrolled, remain covered. The stakes: Here's how the Washington Post puts it: "The opinion, if upheld on appeal, would upend the health insurance industry, the way doctors and hospitals function, and the ability of millions of Americans to access treatments they need to combat serious diseases." Core provisions: As the AP notes, key provisions of the ACA have become popular with Americans, including its protections for pre-existing conditions, expanded Medicaid for lower-income Americans, and the ability of parents to keep their kids covered through age 26. All of which makes the politics tricky for the GOP; the AP says the decision "has landed like a stink bomb among Republicans."