This is Walt Mack.

The Affordable Care Act, often referred to as ObamaCare, is facing its toughest challenge. And it comes from none other than North Carolina’s own Senator Richard Burr.

Burr and two other Republicans, Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah and Representative Fred Upton of Michigan, have conspired to co-sponsor a bill that would gut ObamaCare and throw hundreds of thousands of  North Carolinians into the ranks of the uninsured.

Making this situation a perfect storm, the U.S. Supreme Court will take up the case of King vs. Burwell, alleging that Medicaid subsidies to Federally-run health insurance exchanges are illegal. North Carolina and 36 other states fall into this category.

Should the Supreme Court rule that the subsidies are unconstitutional, it would transform the Affordable Care Act into unaffordable, and the GOP would have achieved its long sought goal of abolishing ObamaCare.

Unfortunately, the GOP-controlled North Carolina General Assembly chose not to set up its own exchange, which would have been almost entirely funded by the Federal Government. There’s still time to act, but it’s doubtful that will happen.

Burr has finally unveiled the GOP’s answer to ObamaCare, and it goes by the sugar-coated name “Patient Care: Choice, Affordability, Responsibility and Empowerment.” But it’s just another euphemism for “soak the uninsured and let those with pre-existing conditions fend for themselves.”