The Supreme Court on Thursday, in a long-anticipated decision, upheld the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, in a case challenging whether the individual mandate can be severed from the rest of the law, or whether the entire law must be struck down.
The mandate initially required that people must buy health insurance or pay a penalty. That provision was upheld in 2012 by a 5-to-4 vote, with Chief Justice John Roberts casting the decisive fifth vote, on the grounds that the provision was covered by the taxing power of Congress. A further challenge in 2017, brought after Congress eliminated the penalty from the ACA individual mandate, was similarly rebuffed by the Court.
In Thursday’s decision, the conservative majority court ruled 7-2 to uphold the ACA as it currently stands, with Justice Stephen Breyer writing for the majority, striking down a lower court ruling and saying the plaintiffs — including Texas and other GOP-led states — did not have standing to bring the suit.
“We conclude that the plaintiffs in this suit failed to show a concrete, particularized injury fairly traceable to the defendants’ conduct in enforcing the specific statutory provision they attack as unconstitutional. They have failed to show that they have standing to attack as unconstitutional the Act’s minimum essential coverage provision. Therefore, we reverse the Fifth Circuit’s judgment in respect to standing, vacate the judgment, and remand the case with instructions to dismiss,” Breyer wrote.
Trump appointees Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the majority decision. Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, the latter also a Trump appointee, dissented, with Alito penning the dissent.
The fate of Obamacare will likely have far-reaching political consequences for President Joe Biden and potentially for an estimated 21 million Americans currently covered by the landmark healthcare law, including many with preexisting conditions.
Source-ABC
