Republicans say that when Congress eliminated the penalty for not having health insurance as part of last year's tax bill, lawmakers rendered the entire health law unconstitutional. (Photo: Shutterstock)

Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh launched a counterattack Thursday to save Obamacare as a Texas federal judge contemplates killing it.

Frosh sued the federal government in a Greenbelt, Maryland, court seeking a declaratory judgment that the Affordable Care Act is constitutional and a court order barring the U.S. from taking any action inconsistent with that conclusion.

The dismantling of the
ACA: A timeline
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The Maryland suit lands one week after the Trump administration told Fort Worth federal judge Reed O'Connor it has no qualms about his striking down the act, only that doing so too quickly could unleash “chaos.” Twenty Republican-led states sued in Texas arguing the health care law became unconstitutional when Congress repealed the the tax penalty incurred for failing to comply with a requirement to obtain minimum qualifying coverage.