*668On December 14, 2018, the Court entered its Order granting partial summary judgment on Count I of the Plaintiffs' Amended Complaint. See ECF No. 211. On December 16, 2018, the Court ordered the Parties to meet and confer and, by January 4, 2019, to jointly propose a schedule for resolving the Plaintiffs' remaining claims. See ECF No. 212. On December 17, 2018, the Intervenor Defendants moved the Court to clarify that the December 14, 2018 Order is not binding or to enter a stay if the Order is binding and to enter final judgment or certify the Order for immediate appeal. See ECF No. 213.
I. BACKGROUND
Plaintiffs are the States of Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Governor Paul LePage of Maine (the "State Plaintiffs"), and individuals Neill Hurley and John Nantz (the "Individual Plaintiffs" and, collectively with the State Plaintiffs, "Plaintiffs").
Defendants are the United States of America, the United States Department of Health and Human Services ("HHS"), Alex Azar, in his official capacity as Secretary of HHS, the United States Internal Revenue Service (the "IRS"), and David J. Kautter, in his official capacity as Acting Commissioner of Internal Revenue (collectively, the "Federal Defendants").
Finally, the States of California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington, and the District of Columbia intervened as defendants (collectively, the "Intervenor Defendants").
The Plaintiffs sued the Federal Defendants seeking, among other things, a declaration that the Individual Mandate of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), Pub. L. 111-148, 124 Stat. 119- 1045 (2010), as amended by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA), *669Pub. L. No. 115-97, 131 Stat. 2054 (2017), is unconstitutional and that the remainder of the ACA is inseverable. Am. Compl. 2, ECF No. 27. Their theory is that, because the TCJA eliminated the shared-responsibility tax, the tax-based saving construction developed by the Supreme Court in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (NFIB) , 567 U.S. 519, 132 S.Ct. 2566, 183 L.Ed.2d 450 (2012), no longer applies. Am. Compl. 2-3, ECF No. 27. Plaintiffs further argue that, as the four joint dissenters reasoned in NFIB , the Individual Mandate is inseverable from the rest of the ACA. Pls.' Br. Prelim. Inj. 35, ECF No. 40 (citing NFIB , 567 U.S. at 691-703, 132 S.Ct. 2566 (joint dissent) ) [hereinafter "Pls.' Br."].
The Federal Defendants agree the Individual Mandate is unconstitutional and inseverable from the ACA's pre-existing-condition provisions. But they argue all other ACA provisions are severable from the mandate. The Intervenor Defendants argue all of Plaintiffs' claims fail.
The Plaintiffs filed an Application for Preliminary Injunction, (ECF No. 39), on April 26, 2018; the Federal Defendants and the Intervenor Defendants responded, (ECF Nos. 91 and 92), on June 7, 2018; and Plaintiffs replied, (ECF No. 175), on July 5, 2018. Because the Federal Defendants argued a judgment, as opposed to an injunction, was more appropriate, the Court provided notice of its intent to resolve the issues raised by the Application for Preliminary Injunction on summary judgment. See July 16, 2018 Order, ECF No. 176 (citing FED. R. CIV. P. 56(f)(3) ). The parties responded. See ECF Nos. 177-79.
On December 14, 2018, the Court issued its order denying the Plaintiffs' request for a preliminary injunction but granting summary judgment on Count I of the Amended Complaint, finding the Individual Mandate is unconstitutional because it no longer triggers a tax and is inseverable from the remainder of the ACA. See Dec. 14, 2018 Order, ECF No. 211. On December 17, 2018, the Intervenor Defendants moved the Court to (1) clarify whether the December 14, 2018 Order is immediately binding on the parties and (2) stay the order or certify it for appeal, as appropriate. See Intervenor Defs.' Mot. Stay, ECF No. 213. The Court ordered expedited briefing, see ECF No. 215, and the Parties promptly complied, see ECF Nos. 216, 217, and 218.
As an initial matter, the Court recognizes the Parties' diligent work on this delicate and complex matter. Counsel have conducted themselves with grace and professionalism, consistently advocating zealously on behalf of their clients with candor and class. And it is no small feat, the Court acknowledges, to prepare such crisp briefing, with so many moving parts, on an expedited basis during the holiday season. For all this, the Court is grateful.
Having reviewed the briefing and applicable law, the Court finds it is most efficient and appropriate to GRANT the Intervenor Defendants' request for final judgment on the December 14, 2018 Order granting summary judgment on Count I of the Amended Complaint and to GRANT the Intervenor Defendants' request for a stay of that judgment.
II. LEGAL STANDARDS
A. Partial Final Judgment
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b) provides: "When an action presents more than one claim for relief ... the court may direct entry of a final judgment as to one or more, but fewer than all, claims or parties only if the court expressly determines that there is no just reason for delay." FED. R. CIV. P. 54(b). This Rule *670"permits district courts to authorize immediate appeal of dispositive rulings on separate claims in a civil action raising multiple claims." Gelboim v. Bank of Am. Corp. , --- U.S. ----, 135 S.Ct. 897, 902, 190 L.Ed.2d 789 (2015). "As both the rule's text and the Supreme Court have made clear, a district court deciding whether to certify a judgment under Rule 54(b) must make two determinations." Briargrove Shopping Ctr. Joint Venture v. Pilgrim Enterprises, Inc. , 170 F.3d 536, 539 (5th Cir. 1999) (citation omitted). First, the court must determine that it is entering judgment on "an ultimate disposition of an individual claim entered in the course of a multiple claims action." Id. (citation omitted). Second, the court must determine that no "just reason for delay exists." Id. (citation omitted).
B. Stay of Judgment
"The party requesting a stay bears the burden of showing that the circumstances justify an exercise of [the court's] discretion." Nken v. Holder , 556 U.S. 418, 433-34 (2009). To determine whether to grant a stay pending appeal courts consider four factors: "(1) whether the stay applicant has made a strong showing that he [or she] is likely to succeed on the merits; (2) whether the applicant will be irreparably injured absent a stay; (3) whether issuance of the stay will substantially injure the other parties interested in the proceeding; and (4) where the public interest lies." Campaign for S. Equality v. Bryant , 773 F.3d 55, 57 (5th Cir. 2014) (quoting Veasey v. Perry , 769 F.3d 890, 892 (5th Cir. 2014) ). But when "evaluating these factors, [the Fifth Circuit] has refused to apply them 'in a rigid ... [or] mechanical fashion.' " Id. (quoting United States v. Baylor Univ. Med. Ctr. , 711 F.2d 38, 39 (5th Cir. 1983) ).
III. ANALYSIS
A. The Court Will Enter Partial Final Judgment
Given the Parties' inquiries about whether the Court's December 14, 2018 Order is final and binding-and the unanimous agreement that the Order should be immediately appealable1 -the Court finds it is most efficient to enter a partial final judgment under Rule 54(b) on the Order and then stay it pending appeal.
The Federal Defendants suggest it would be inappropriate for the Court to enter partial final judgment under Rule 54(b)"because the Amended Complaint presents only one claim for purposes of Rule 54(b) -that the individual mandate is unconstitutional and that it is not severable from the rest of the ACA."2 They assert that "Counts I through V represent merely alternative theories of relief or different forms of remedy."3 The Court finds that Counts I through V of the Amended Complaint are not mere redundancies.
Count I, for example, asks for a declaratory judgment that the Individual Mandate is unconstitutional.4 Count II, however, raises a Due Process Clause claim and asserts that because "Section 5000A's individual mandate is unconstitutional, the rest of the ACA is irrational under Congress's own findings" and that "[t]he ACA lacks a rational basis now that the individual mandate's tax penalty has been repealed."5 It *671is true this claim is likely moot if the Court's December 14, 2018 Order is affirmed on appeal; but if the Order is reversed in whole or in part, the Plaintiffs could still seek relief under the theory put forth in Count II. And Count IV, for example, presents an APA claim that presupposes the ACA's unconstitutionality but seeks different relief entirely.6 The claims, in other words, are related but distinct.
Moreover, the Court finds that summary judgment on Count I is an "ultimate disposition of an individual claim." Pilgrim Enterprises , 170 F.3d at 539 (citation omitted). By the Court's Order, the Plaintiffs have succeeded on Count I-the entry of summary judgment "dispose[d] of that claim entirely ." Monument Mgmt. Ltd. P'ship I v. City of Pearl , 952 F.2d 883, 885 (5th Cir. 1992) (emphasis in original). And that claim-that the Individual Mandate is unconstitutional-is the Plaintiffs' "primary claim." Id. (emphasis in original). Plus, for the reasons discussed in the below stay analysis, the Court finds there is "no just reason for delay[ing]" appeal of the December 14, 2018 Order. See Pilgrim Enterprises , 170 F.3d at 539.
The Court therefore GRANTS the Intervenor Defendants' motion for final judgment on the December 14, 2018 Order, (ECF No. 211), granting summary judgment on Count I of the Amended Complaint and declaring the Individual Mandate unconstitutional and inseverable.
B. The Order is Stayed
The Intervenor Defendants bear the burden of demonstrating that a stay is warranted. Nken , 556 U.S. at 433-34, 129 S.Ct. 1749. In their briefing, the Intervenor Defendants address all four factors relevant to a district court's analysis of whether to exercise its discretion to grant a stay pending appeal.7 For the reasons set forth below, the Court finds the Intervenor Defendants cannot carry their burden on the first relevant factor-likelihood of success on the merits. But the Intervenor Defendants prevail on the remaining elements, and the Plaintiffs do not argue otherwise.
1. The Intervenor Defendants Are Unlikely to Succeed
The Intervenor Defendants put forth a very powerful narrative in this case-one they assert the Fifth Circuit is likely to adopt. In truth, the narrative presents a forceful, surface-level appeal. It goes something like this.
The Individual Plaintiffs have no standing because they suffer no injury. After the TCJA, there is no tax penalty for non-compliance with the Individual Mandate. And anyways, the Individual Mandate is purely optional. So, at most, the ACA presents the Individual Plaintiffs with a simple choice between buying ACA-compliant insurance or "paying" a $0 tax. No harm, no foul.
But even if the choice between buying insurance and doing nothing creates standing, the Intervenor Defendants continue, the Individual Mandate is constitutional. It is constitutional as an exercise of Congress's Tax Power because the now-eliminated shared-responsibility payment still satisfies a number of the tax factors discussed in NFIB . And even if the Individual Mandate is no longer salvageable as an exercise of the Tax Power, it may now be viewed as a proper exercise of Congress's Interstate Commerce Power because it does not compel anyone to do anything.
*672Finally, even if the Individual Mandate is unconstitutional, it is severable from the remainder of the ACA. We know that because the 2017 Congress that passed the TCJA eliminated the shared-responsibility payment but left the rest of the ACA intact.
So stated, this narrative is compelling. But it rests on two crucial premises, without which it falls apart. First, it is premised on a belief that written law is not binding. Second, it is premised on the view that the Supreme Court's reasoning in NFIB did not simply craft a saving construction but instead permanently supplanted Congress's intent by altering the very nature of the ACA. In the Court's view, neither of these premises hold and therefore neither does the narrative. The Court therefore finds the Intervenor Defendants are unlikely to succeed on the merits of their appeal for at least the following basic reasons.
a. Standing
The Intervenor Defendants assert that, on appeal, they "are likely to establish that the Individual Plaintiffs do not have standing to maintain this action" because, after January 1, 2019, the Individual Plaintiffs will not be put to a choice "between purchasing minimum essential coverage, on the one hand, and paying the penalty for not doing so, on the other." Intervenor Defs.' Mot. Stay 8, ECF No. 213-1 (citing Hotze v. Burwell , 784 F.3d 984, 993 (5th Cir. 2015) ). The Court finds it unlikely that the Fifth Circuit will hold the Individual Plaintiffs lack standing to challenge the constitutionality of the Individual Mandate-under Hotze or otherwise.
In Hotze , the plaintiffs challenged the ACA as unconstitutional under the Origination Clause and the Takings Clause, unlike the Individual Plaintiffs here who, like the plaintiffs in NFIB , challenge the Individual Mandate as beyond Congress's enumerated powers.8 In deciding the case, the Fifth Circuit did not hold that an individual may challenge the constitutionality of the ACA only if the individual pleads that they lack ACA-compliant coverage and are therefore faced with a choice between purchasing insurance or paying a penalty.9 Instead, it held on the basis of the pleadings before it that the plaintiffs failed to adequately plead that precise dilemma and that doing so would have been "the most straightforward" way to demonstrate standing. Id. at 994 ("Accordingly, we hold that Dr. Hotze has failed to demonstrate standing on the most straightforward ground-that is, that the ACA forces him to choose between paying the penalty and purchasing compliant insurance.").
Specifically, Dr. Hotze pleaded that the "ACA compels Plaintiff Hotze and other Texans to pay enormous penalties to the federal government, or else purchase health insurance that is far more expensive and less useful than existing employer-based coverage." Complaint at 1, Hotze v. Sebelius , 991 F. Supp. 2d 864 (S.D. Tex. 2014) (No. 4:13-cv-01318).10 This "purchase *673or penalty" theory of economic injury forced the court to contend with the fact that Dr. Hotze never actually pleaded the facts necessary to support his own theory of standing -i.e., that he was put to a concrete choice between the costs of obeying 26 U.S.C. § 5000A(a) or paying the penalty amount set by § 5000A(c).11 To the contrary, the complaint there suggested Dr. Hotze faced no such dilemma because he was covered by his employer. See Hotze , 784 F.3d at 989 ("[T]he complaint at no point clearly alleges that the health-insurance policy that Braidwood already provides to Dr. Hotze fails to satisfy the mandates.").
Hotze , then, is not a broad holding that individuals lack standing to challenge the Individual Mandate's constitutionality unless they first disobey that provision and fail to maintain compliant coverage. To read Hotze in such a manner would run headlong into the well-established doctrine that individuals need not first disobey a law to earn standing to challenge it.12 Instead, Hotze is a narrow, fact-specific holding that the plaintiff failed to adequately plead his own purchase-or-penalty theory of standing. Hotze , 784 F.3d at 991 ("Thus, although we do not doubt that many have suffered an injury in fact at the hands of the individual mandate, the plaintiffs' complaint does not adequately allege that Dr. Hotze is among them." (emphasis added) ).
Importantly, the Individual Plaintiffs here chart a different course than Dr. Hotze. Their pleadings clearly allege they are required by the Individual Mandate to maintain insurance they do not want to continue purchasing-i.e., they are required by a law to continue activity they do not want to engage in-and that this requirement is inherently beyond Congress's enumerated powers. See Am. Compl. 5, ECF No. 27 ("Mr. Hurley maintains minimum essential health insurance coverage, which he purchased on the ACA-created exchange."); id. at 27 ("In the absence of the ACA, the Individual Plaintiffs would purchase a health-insurance plan different from the ACA-compliant plans that they are currently required to purchase were they afforded the option without the ACA."); id. at 28 (" Section 5000A's individual mandate exceeded Congress's enumerated powers by forcing Individual Plaintiffs to maintain ACA-compliant health insurance coverage.").
The Fifth Circuit is therefore likely to find that the Individual Plaintiffs pleaded a sufficient injury in two respects.13 First, *674unlike the purely theoretical and contradictory allegations in Hotze ,14 the Individual Plaintiffs here actually allege a clear and present injury. Indeed, the Individual Plaintiffs put it quite plainly: "In the absence of the ACA, the Individual Plaintiffs would purchase a health-insurance plan different from the ACA-compliant plans that they are currently required to purchase."15 Compl. 27, ECF No. 27. There is no equivocation, there is no speculation. The Individual Plaintiffs allege they are bound to purchase something they do not want to purchase and that if they were not so bound they would not make the purchase.16 And whereas Dr. Hotze would face his injury only were his employer to stop providing ACA-compliant coverage, the Individual Plaintiffs here face their alleged injury now-they are being required to continue buying something they do not want.
Second, as discussed in the Court's Order,17 the Individual Plaintiffs sufficiently allege that they are the direct objects of an unconstitutional exercise of power traceable to the Individual Mandate that will be redressed by a holding that the mandate is invalid.18 That is to say, the Individual Plaintiffs allege a straightforward constitutional injury: Congress legislated in a way the Constitution does not allow and the Individual Plaintiffs are the direct object of that legislation. The "alleged violation[ ] of the Constitution here [is] not immaterial, but form[s], rather, the sole basis of the relief sought."
*675Bell v. Hood , 327 U.S. 678, 683, 66 S.Ct. 773, 90 L.Ed. 939 (1946). "And it is established practice for [the Supreme] Court to sustain the jurisdiction of federal courts to issue injunctions to protect rights safeguarded by the Constitution." Id. at 684, 66 S.Ct. 773.
The Individual Plaintiffs' allegation is therefore likely to satisfy the test for constitutional injury on appeal.19 And to the extent existing constitutional-injury doctrine deals largely with the infringement of enumerated rights, rather than the violation of the Constitution's structural protection of rights, the Court finds it unlikely the Fifth Circuit would rely on such an untenable distinction.20 The Individual *676Plaintiffs allege they are subject to a congressional act that inherently exceeds that body's power. And "[i]f the constitutional structure of our Government that protects individual liberty is compromised, individuals who suffer otherwise justiciable injury"-such as the requirement to purchase an unwanted product-"may object." Bond , 564 U.S. at 223, 131 S.Ct. 2355.
This raises one final point: The Intervenor Defendants argue the Individual Plaintiffs cannot plead a constitutional injury (or any justiciable injury, for that matter) because the Individual Mandate no longer compels compliance. See Intervenor Defs.' Mot. Stay 8, ECF No. 213-1 ("Beginning January 1, 2019, the Individual Plaintiffs will no longer be on the horns of that dilemma; as a result, the Fifth Circuit is likely to hold that they lack standing."). But standing analysis and merits analysis are fundamentally separate inquiries, and this line of attack conflates them.21 That is, it rests on the premise that written law, like § 5000A(a), is not binding-which is one of the Intervenor Defendants' premiere merits arguments in this case.22 That the Individual Mandate does nothing is the Intervenor Defendants' leading argument for why the mandate permissibly "regulates" interstate commerce.23 Putting aside the logical difficulty of that argument, the Supreme Court has made clear that whether a challenged "statute in fact constitutes an abridgment of the plaintiff's" constitutional protections "is, of course, irrelevant to the standing analysis."24 So, the Fifth Circuit is unlikely to skip ahead to the merits to determine § 5000A(a) is non-binding and therefore constitutional and then revert to the standing analysis to use its merits determination to conclude there was no standing to reach the merits *677in the first place. It is instead likely to hold that the Intervenor Defendants' merits argument that the Individual Plaintiffs need not comply with the law is an inappropriate ground for challenging standing25 -and likely inappropriate on the merits.
This then brings into focus the proper injury inquiry for the Individual Plaintiffs' constitutional challenge: Do the Individual Plaintiffs sufficiently allege that the Individual Mandate operates to injure them? The inquiry is not whether the Individual Plaintiffs are injured if they break the law-i.e., if they disobey the Individual Mandate. The Court does not ask whether a plaintiff is injured by a challenged law if they choose to disregard the law they challenge as unconstitutional-the injury arises from following the law as Congress intended. That is the entire point of a constitutional challenge. Were courts to assess whether plaintiffs are injured by disregarding allegedly unconstitutional laws, courts would not only be implicitly sanctioning lawlessness but would be foreclosing a large swath of constitutional challenges already entertained by the Supreme Court.26
In this regard, the Individual Plaintiffs' alleged injury-the requirement to purchase an unwanted product-is not self-inflicted, it is congressionally inflicted. Congress intended to achieve something through the Individual Mandate, the Individual Plaintiffs allege, that is beyond its constitutional reach. It would be illogical to ask whether the allegedly unconstitutional Individual Mandate injures the Individual Plaintiffs when it is ignored. The answer is obviously "no," but it is also *678obviously irrelevant. Answering whether the Individual Mandate injures the Plaintiffs by unconstitutionally requiring them to do something requires analyzing what the law requires them to do, not whether the Plaintiffs can get away with not doing it.
In sum, the pleadings satisfy Hotze and otherwise sufficiently state a constitutional injury sufficient to meet the Article III requirements of standing. And to the extent an independent, justiciable injury other than regulation by unconstitutional legislation is necessary, the Individual Plaintiffs have alleged that, too-they are required to purchase a product that, in the absence of § 5000A(a), they allege they would not purchase. If the Fifth Circuit has held that an allegation of death to whooping cranes-majestic as they are-is sufficient injury-in-fact to confer standing on an individual,27 surely it is unlikely to hold that an allegation of unconstitutional coercion is not. And while it may not agree on the merits of that allegation, it may not thereby dismiss it at the threshold. The Court therefore finds the Intervenor Defendants are unlikely to succeed on their standing argument.
b. Merits
The Intervenor Defendants also contend they are likely to succeed on the merits of the Plaintiffs' claims. First, the Intervenor Defendants assert they are likely to succeed in arguing the Individual Mandate "can still be upheld as a lawful exercises of Congress's taxing power" because " Section 5000A will retain most of the features that the Supreme Court pointed to in concluding that it could fairly be construed as a tax" and because "the Fifth Circuit is unlikely to share this Court's view that the production of revenue at all times is the sine qua non of a tax." Intervenor Defs.' Mot. Stay 8-9, ECF No. 213-1. They also assert the Fifth Circuit "has upheld the constitutionality of a statute that taxed the making of machine guns, even though federal law had subsequently banned the possession of machine guns, and even though the federal government no longer collected the tax."Id. at 9 ( United States v. Ardoin , 19 F.3d 177, 179-80 (5th Cir. 1994) ).
Next, the Intervenor Defendants argue they "are likely to succeed on their alternative theory that, if the minimum coverage provision can no longer be fairly construed as a tax, it no longer violates the Commerce Clause" because "once the penalty for failing to maintain coverage is reduced to zero, it will lose its coercive effect." Id. The Intervenor Defendants then insist that, even if the Fifth Circuit holds the Individual Mandate unconstitutional, the court is likely to hold that "the appropriate remedy is to strike the amendment and order that the statute operate the way it did before the amendment was adopted." Id. (citing Frost v. Corp. Comm'n Okla. , 278 U.S. 515, 525, 49 S.Ct. 235, 73 L.Ed. 483 (1928) ). Finally, the Intervenor Defendants argue that, even if they lose on all the above arguments, they "are likely to succeed on their argument" that the Individual Mandate "is severable from the rest of the ACA." Id. at 10. This is because the 2017 Congress "zeroed out the penalty for failing to maintain minimum coverage while leaving the rest of the ACA intact." Id.
The Court disagrees with each of the Intervenor Defendants' contentions for the reasons set out in the Court's 55 pages of analysis in the December 14, 2018 Order. See ECF No. 211. But the Court finds it appropriate to briefly summarize the logic of why the Intervenor Defendants' arguments, though well-made, are ultimately *679unavailing and unlikely to succeed on appeal.
i. Unconstitutional Under the Tax Power 28
The Individual Mandate can no longer be saved as an exercise of Congress's Tax Power for the following reasons:
• The Individual Mandate, 26 U.S.C. § 5000A(a), and the shared-responsibility payment, §§ 5000A(b) and (c), are textually and functionally distinct.29
• The Supreme Court's decision in NFIB recognized this distinction.30
• The Supreme Court held the Individual Mandate could be saved under Congress's Tax Power because it triggered the shared-responsibility payment, which could be plausibly read as a tax.31
• The Supreme Court held the shared-responsibility payment could be treated as the tax the Individual Mandate triggered based on the following factors: The payment
• "is paid into the Treasury by 'taxpayer[s]' when they file their tax returns,"
• "does not apply to individuals who do not pay federal income taxes because their household income is less than the filing threshold,"
• "amount is determined by such familiar factors as taxable income, number of dependents, and joint filing status,"
• "is found in the Internal Revenue Code and enforced by the IRS," and
• "yields the essential feature of any tax: It produces at least some revenue for the Government."32
• In light of the TCJA, § 5000A(b) no longer "looks like a tax in many respects."33 It now fails at least Factor 1 (no longer paid by taxpayers into the Treasury), Factor 3 (no amount and $0 is not determined by familiar factors), Factor 4 (not enforced by the IRS) and, crucially, Factor 5 (no longer yields the "essential feature" of a tax).
• Section 5000A(b) now fails four out of the five factors identified by the Supreme Court as justifying its saving construction, including the one feature the Supreme Court identified as "essential."34 The mandate therefore no longer triggers a tax.
Accordingly, the Court finds the Fifth Circuit is likely to draw a straight line *680from the majority's reasoning in NFIB and agree that the Individual Mandate cannot be sustained under the saving construction that construed the mandate as triggering a tax.35
ii. Unconstitutional Under the Interstate Commerce Power 36
The Individual Mandate continues to be unsustainable under Congress's Interstate Commerce Power, as the Supreme Court already held, for the following reasons:
• The Supreme Court held the Individual Mandate is unconstitutional under the Interstate Commerce Clause.37
• The Individual Mandate no longer triggers a tax, so the saving construction crafted in NFIB no longer applies.38
• Even under the saving construction crafted in NFIB , the Individual Mandate was a requirement to act-otherwise, the failure to act would not have triggered a tax.39
• All that remains now is a written law with plain text that mandates the *681Individual Plaintiffs to purchase minimum essential coverage-which the evidence suggests they and others will do.40
• Plain text confirms the Individual Mandate is a mandate.41 It is entitled, "Requirement to maintain minimum essential coverage."42 It states, "An applicable individual shall ... ensure that the individual ... is covered."43
• Five Supreme Court Justices concluded "[t]he most straightforward reading of the mandate is that it commands individuals to purchase insurance. After all, it states that individuals 'shall' maintain health insurance."44
• Surrounding text confirms the Individual Mandate creates an obligation in the absence of the shared-responsibility payment.45 Section 5000A(e), for example, "did and still does exempt some individuals from the eliminated shared-responsibility payment but not the *682Individual Mandate."46 Section 5000A(d)"exempted, and continues to exempt, certain individuals from the Individual Mandate itself."47
• Reading the Individual Mandate to be anything other than a mandate would twice violate the canon against surplusage by rendering the mandatory words of § 5000A(a) ineffective-i.e., "requirement" and "shall"-and rendering whole provisions of § 5000A ineffective-i.e., §§ 5000A(d) and (e).48
• Written law is binding, with or without the specter of an enforcement provision.49
*683• The Individual Mandate, § 5000A(a), is federal law-having satisfied the Constitution's bicameralism and presentment requirements-and federal law is inherently binding on those within its jurisdiction.50 Not even the Founders, who were leery of Federal power, argued otherwise.51
• This is as true with respect to the Constitution as it is with respect to the Individual Mandate: Most of the Constitution's provisions are unaccompanied by a penalty-tax or otherwise. Yet time and again courts recognize the Constitution, as written law, is inherently binding.52
The Individual Mandate no longer triggers a tax and therefore can no longer be read as an exercise of Congress's Tax Power. That being true, the Court finds the Fifth Circuit is unlikely to either disagree with the Supreme Court's NFIB holding that the mandate is unsustainable under Congress's Interstate Commerce Power or accept the alternative theory that the mandate, though it regulates interstate conduct, is simply not binding.
iii. Frost Is Not Dispositive 53
Frost does not control or require invalidating Congress's tax bill for the following reasons:
*684• In Frost , the plaintiff challenged the later-in-time legislation.54 Here, the Plaintiffs do not challenge the later-in-time legislation.55
• In Frost , all parties agreed the earlier-in-time legislation was constitutional-and the Supreme Court expressly relied on that concession .56 Here, the entire case is about the constitutionality of the earlier-in-time legislation.
• In Frost, the later-in-time legislation did not render an earlier law unconstitutional-it was itself unconstitutional because it created disparately treated classes.57 Here, the later-in-time TCJA is constitutional.
• Anyways, the later-in-time TCJA does not render the ACA unconstitutional-it abrogates the ground on which the Supreme Court concluded the ACA could be saved.58
• Frost stands only for the proposition that courts may invalidate unconstitutional action and preserve constitutional action; it does not empower the judiciary to construe constitutional action as unconstitutional to preserve unconstitutional action as constitutional.
For these reasons, the Fifth Circuit is unlikely to invalidate Congress's constitutional tax law under the guise of Frost , a decision that invalidated an unconstitutional law. To read Frost as empowering courts to invalidate Congress's constitutional legislation to save a judicial opinion that admittedly construed unconstitutional legislation as something other than what *685Congress intended would go above and beyond any limits on the judicial power yet seen.
iv. Individual Mandate Inseverable 59
The Individual Mandate is entirely inseverable for the following straightforward reasons:
• The test for severability is congressional intent.60
• Congressional intent is expressed through enacted text.61
• If the enacted text is unambiguous, no further inquiry is permitted.62
• The enacted text is unambiguous: The Individual Mandate is "essential" to the ACA.63
• The Supreme Court relied on the import of this plain text before and after the exchanges were created and the Individual Mandate was in effect.64
*686• The past two Administrations have agreed the Individual Mandate is inseverable from the guaranteed-issue and community-rating provisions.65
• No Congress-not in 2017, not ever-repealed the Individual Mandate.66
• No Congress-not in 2017, not ever-repealed the ACA's Findings.67
• The Court cannot rely on the 2017 Congress's elimination of the shared-responsibility payment to treat the textually and functionally distinct Individual Mandate as implicitly repealed when Congress left the Individual Mandate as enacted text and left in place other text that calls the Individual Mandate-not the functionally distinct shared-responsibility payment-"essential."68
• The Constitution's separation of powers prohibits the Court from doing for Congress what Congress *687tried and failed to do itself.69
• Floor statements and policy arguments do not supplant enacted text or allow the Court to construe what Congress did and did not do as what a party asserts Congress almost did and did not do.70
• Congress included a severability clause for Medicaid Expansion but not for the Individual Mandate, which Congress called "essential."71
• The 2017 Congress's "decision" to not repeal the remainder of the ACA was not a "decision" that supports an inference of severability intent-it was a consequence of the TCJA being passed as part of the budget and reconciliation process.72
*688• If Congress intends to sever the Individual Mandate from the remainder of the ACA, Congress can sever the Individual Mandate from the remainder of the ACA. The Court cannot do that for Congress.73
Accordingly, the Fifth Circuit is unlikely to *689accept the Intervenor Defendants' countertextual severability argument based on extratextual evidence.74 Policy arguments and countertextual evidence do not change the text Congress enacted, and "[a]s Justice Kagan recently stated, 'we're all textualists now.' "75 This reflects a deep-seated respected within the judiciary for its role within the separation of powers: Discerning congressional intent from the end product of a constitutionally mandated process for legislative action. "If the text is sufficiently clear, the text usually controls. The text of the law is the law."76 And the enacted text could not be clearer as to Congress's intent that the Individual Mandate not be severed from the ACA. To accept the Intervenor Defendants' countertextual argument based on extratextual evidence would represent a breathtaking conception of the judicial power.77
2. The Equities Favor a Stay
As to the remaining elements of the stay analysis, the Intervenor Defendants assert "[t]he equities ... tip overwhelmingly in favor of a stay." Intervenor Defs.' Mot. Stay 11, ECF No. 213-1. To this point, the Intervenor Defendants catalog the real-life impact the Court's December 14, 2018 Order is likely to have in the absence of time for lawmakers to respond. See id. at 13 ("Suddenly declaring [the ACA] void would cause chaos for patients, providers, insurance carriers, and the federal and state governments."). Meanwhile, the Intervenor Defendants point out, "since open enrollment in Texas for 2019 has concluded, the Individual Plaintiffs have already purchased (or declined to purchase) ACA-compliant insurance for 2019. In other words, the Court's decision cannot affect the choices that they have already made for next year." Id. at 12.
The Plaintiffs suggest certifying the Order for appeal and therefore do not brief the stay analysis; instead, they "leave to the Court's discretion whether [a stay] may be appropriate under these unique Circumstances." Pls.' Resp. 5-6, ECF No. 216. The Federal Defendants "do not object to Intervenor-Defendants' request that the Court stay enforcement of the Order pending appeal, given the potential for disruption to the healthcare markets if immediate implementation were required." Fed. Defs.' Resp. 10-11, ECF No. 216. "Indeed, the ACA has now been in effect for several years," the Federal Defendants continue, "and it is in the parties' and the public's interest that appellate review be exhausted before the Federal Defendants begin implementing the Court's judgment." Id. at 11.
The Intervenor Defendants' arguments on the equities of a stay are well-taken. And the Plaintiffs' and Federal Defendants' agreement, or lack of disagreement, that a stay is warranted for those reasons is telling. The Court therefore GRANTS the Intervenor Defendants' request for a stay of the Rule 54(b) Final Judgment on the December 14, 2018 Order.
IV. CONCLUSION
"The American rule of law ... depends on neutral, impartial judges who say what the law is, not what the law should be."78 And courts must refrain from resolving policy disputes, relying instead on text -based decisions. The more courts step into breaches for Congress, the more courts will be called upon to step into breaches for Congress. That would represent a fundamental shift in the Constitution's careful balancing of powers-not only on the Judiciary-Legislature plane, but also on the citizen-government plane. If the judicial power encompasses ignoring unambiguous enacted text-the text citizens read to know what their representatives have *690done-to approximate what a judge believes Congress meant to do, but did not, then policymaking lies in the hands of unelected judges and Congress may transfer politically unwinnable issues to the bench. This the Constitution does not allow. This the Supreme Court does not allow. And for those reasons, the Court finds it is powerless to read the ACA as the Intervenor Defendants request and believes the Fifth Circuit is unlikely to disagree.
But because many everyday Americans would otherwise face great uncertainty during the pendency of appeal, the Court finds that the December 14, 2018 Order declaring the Individual Mandate unconstitutional and inseverable should be stayed. Accordingly, the Court ORDERS that the December 14, 2018 Order, (ECF No. 211), and the Partial Final Judgment severing Count I and finalizing that Order-which will issue by separate order-be stayed during the pendency of the Order's appeal.
SO ORDERED on this 30th day of December, 2018