Protections for people with pre-existing conditions would vanish. Initiatives to improve hospital quality would stop. Rules for calorie counts at restaurants would no longer be in force.

And oh, yeah, something like 20 million people would lose health insurance.

Those are just some of the likely consequences if the federal courts rule in favor of a lawsuit challenging the Affordable Care Act and decide as President Donald Trump said he hopes they will that the entire law has to come off the books.

The lawsuit comes from 20 Republican state officials . Although it prevailed in a federal district court late last year, even conservative experts say the case is weak and begging for reversal either at the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which will consider it next, or the Supreme Court , should it get that far.