As most of you know, this week was the third time the Supreme Court heard a challenge to the Affordable Care Act (last times were in 2012 and 2015). Striking down the ACA today would add over 21M uninsured people, close to a 70% increase.
The Supreme Court needs to answer 2 questions before being able to dismantle the ACA:
1/decide of the lawsuit has a standing,
2/decide if the individual mandate is constitutional. The payment penalty for being uninsured was removed in 2017 – which was deemed a tax in prior hearings and thus not falling under the Supreme Court authority. The penalty now removed by Republicans, the lawsuit was started again this year by Texas & other states, while California is defending the law.
A decision will most likely not be made until June.
So far the comments that have transpired were in favor of maintaining the ACA in place. At least 5 Supreme Court justices (including 2 conservatives) indicated they would reject the attempt to kill the ACA. Both Roberts and Kavanaugh said striking down the individual mandate did not require to struck down the law in its entirety.
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Roberts said to the Texas Solicitor General Hawkins “I think it’s hard for you to argue that Congress intended the entire act to fall if the mandate were struck down when the same Congress that lowered the penalty to zero did not even try to repeal the rest of the act. […] I think, frankly, that they wanted the court to do that. But that’s not our job.”
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Justice Alito said: “At the time of the first case, there was a strong reason to believe that the individual mandate was like a part in an airplane that was essential to keep the plane flying,” Alito said. “But now the part has been taken out, and the plane has not crashed. So, if we were to decide this case the way you advocate, how would we explain why the individual mandate in its present form is essential to the operation of the act?”
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Justice Sonia Sotomayor said that the argument for striking down the whole law, without proof of substantial harm to anyone, including Texas and other conservative states, did not make much sense. “At some point, common sense seems to me would say, ‘Huh?’ “
Based on the above, I do not believe we need to make changes to our healthcare holdings. Biden could reinstate some taxes such as the 2.3% medtech tax (part of the ACA) that was ended by Trump – but I have not seen in listed in its health care plan so far.
Thanks,
Julie