Late Friday night the good news came that TPPF and the Texas-led coalition of state attorneys general scored a major victory in the fight against Obamacare. While the decision the will likely be appealed, such a decisive victory shows a clear legal pathway to overturn the disastrous Affordable Care Act. But that’s not where the conversation ends.

Not only must we end Obamacare’s failed and unconstitutional policies, but states should be preparing healthcare strategies of their own and taking advantage of existing opportunities from recent Administration regulatory changes. Not content to just take a victory lap, TPPF’s Robert Henneke, lead attorney on the case for the named individual plaintiffs, used this opportunity to champion state solutions.

“It’s a tremendous opportunity for our state leadership to lead and for Texas to be the model for state-based regulatory success on health care,” Henneke told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram the night of the court ruling.

On Fox News, he again pointed to states as the necessary next step. “We need to look to the state, look to the states to stand up and use market-based solutions to make sure that the sick can get care, can afford care, and get care from the doctors they choose.”

As Henneke pointed out to the Epoch Times, states can begin work on solutions now. “We need to look at the policy not through the courts but by the legislative process and I think this is the more important lesson of how critical it is for the states to now reassert themselves in their role, to step back in and to be the drivers of health care policymaking,” he said.

In addition to call for action from the states, Henneke also defended those who would claim Judge O’Connor’s decision was activism from the bench. As he pointed out in an interview with the Washington Examiner, “At the end of the day, the pretzel that exists was not created by O’Connor, in many ways it was not created by Congress, it was created by the Supreme Court,” he said. “And so I think O’Connor did a very disciplined job of staying true to the Texas statute and the controlling precedent of the case.”

At TPPF we are not just fighting against bad policies, but we want to help foster free-market and state-based solutions that deliver citizens from bureaucratic boondoggles, allow for affordable care with the choice of health care provider, and ensure that people with pre-existing conditions don’t fall through the cracks such as through guaranteed protection pools. Winning in court is important, but it’s only one part of our mission.

You can read more about TPPF’s victory against Obamacare in Texas Monthly, Texas Monitor, and the Houston Chronicle. Or, for an even more in-depth analysis, check out The Foundation Podcast where TPPF’s executive director, Kevin Roberts, talks directly with Henneke about the outcomes of the case.