ACA seems likely to survive latest Supreme Court challenge
WASHINGTON – When the Supreme Court rescued t he Affordable Care Act five years ago from the second concerted effort to have its truck down, Associate Justice Antonin Sc ali am used ,“We really should start calling this law `SCOTUScare.'”
The quip from the leader of the court's conservative wing, who died the following year, was in response to his colleagues' dual rulings in 2012 and 2015 upholding President Barack Obama's signature legislative achievement, which came to be known as Obamacare.
Even Chief Justice John Roberts smiled at the remark, and for good reason. He has presided over the health care law's protection since its enactment in 2010. And this week, as opponents drag the statute back into court again, he appears poised to have the last laugh.
On Tuesday, the high court will heart he latest major challenge to the law, one based on Congress' elimination in 2017 of the tax penalty intended to prod consumers to buy health insurance. Challenge rs, led by Texas and backed by the Trump administration, contend that the mandate is unconstitutional without any tax to enforce it.
Despite last month' s Senate confirmation of Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, which gives conservatives a 6-3 majority, most court-watchers predict the challenge isn' t likely to topple the 10-year-old statute. Even if the justices are receptive, a majority of them are considered unlikely to strike down the entire law, as opponents want.
“The argument just doesn't make sense,” said Robert Weiner, a former associate deputy attorney general who oversaw t he defense of the law in its first two years. “It seems really far-fetched.”
Nevertheless, the threat to more than 20 million consumers' health coverage, along with other popular provisions of the law, looms as the biggest case on the Supreme Court' s 2020 docket. A ruling is expected by June.
The issue dominated much of Barrett's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, when Democrats displayed posters of constituents who rely on the law. They urged her to recuse herself from the case because of earlier writings and speeches critical of the court's prior rulings.
Democrats maybe exaggerating the threat this time, given the expectation that the justices will not strike it down entirely. If so, it's clear why: Americans worry about health care, and Obamacare is popular.
In a recent Suffolk University/ USA TODAY poll, health care ranked as the fourth most important issue for voters in choosing a president, after the economy, COVID- 1 9 and candidates' character. A recent poll by Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan healthcare policy group, found 58% do not want the law overturned.
When the original case was heard in 2012, oral arguments inside the marble courtroom stretched for six hours over three days. On Tuesday, the court plans to dispose of the matter in about 90 minutes by phone, given the need to meet remotely because of the pandemic.
Several other cases involving elements of the law have reached the justice s over the past eight years. Three of them dealt with Obama administration rules that required employers to offer free coverage of contraceptives as part of a preventive care package. Another focused on billions of dollars owed health insurance companies for the risks taken and losses incurred during the law' s in fancy. More could be on the way.
“Nothing's ever been easy about the ACA, in my experience at least,” said former Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, who argued the 2012 and 2015 cases before the Supreme Court.