A federal judge in Texas put an end to Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act, on Friday night, ruling in the case of Texas v. Azar, that the entire health-care law is unconstitutional because of a recent change in federal tax law. The ruling came on the eve of the deadline Saturday for Americans to sign up for coverage in the federal insurance exchange created under the law.

As part of the tax overhaul passed last year, the ACA penalty for not having health insurance was abolished. This went into effect in January, 2018.Officials in 20 states led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton – argued that with elimination of the health insurance requirement there is no longer a tax, and therefore the law loses its constitutionality.

In a 55-page opinion, federal judge Reed O’Connor agreed, and writes regarding the lawsuit: “The court finds the individual mandate can no longer be fairly read as an exercise of Congress’s tax power and is still impermissible under the interstate commerce clause ― meaning the individual mandate is unconstitutional“. [T]he court finds the individual mandate is essential to and inseverable from the remainder of the ACA.”

Since the lawsuit was filed in January, many health-law specialists have viewed its logic as weak but nevertheless have regarded the case as the greatest looming legal threat to the 2010 law, which has been assailed repeatedly in the courts.

The Supreme Court upheld the law as constitutional in 2012 and 2015, though the first of those opinions struck down the ACA’s provision that was to expand Medicaid nationwide, letting each state choose instead. No matter how O’Connor ruled, legal experts have been forecasting that the Texas case would be appealed and could well place the law again before the high court, giving its conservative newest member, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, a first opportunity to take part.

It is expected that this ruling will be appealed to the Supreme Court. Pending the appeal process, the law remains in place. A spokeswoman for California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who leads a group of states opposing the lawsuit, said that the Democratic defenders of the law are ready to challenge the ruling in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.

It was not immediately clear what the legal path will be from here. Technically, O’Connor granted summary judgment to the lawsuit’s plaintiffs – the Texas attorney general, with support from 18 GOP counterparts and a governor.

Because the judge did not grant an injunction, as the plaintiffs had asked for, “it’s unclear whether this is a final judgment, whether it’s appealable, whether it can be stayed,” said Timothy Jost, a health-law expert who is a professor emeritus at Washington and Lee University. Jost, an ACA proponent, predicted that a stay would lock in the law during appeals, saying that, otherwise, “it’s breathtaking what [O’Connor]’s doing here on a Friday night after the courts closed.”