Barrett hammered on health care at confirmation hearing

Democrats zeroed in on key issues surrounding health care in the third day of Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination hearing Wednesday, as Republicans argued members of the other party have overblown their criticisms of a qualified judge.

Barrett, who was nominated to her current post on the 7th Circuit by President Donald Trump, would replace the late Justice Ruth Bader

Ginsburg, a liberal legal icon.

Illinois Democratic Sen. Richard J. Durbin said there’s an “orange cloud” over her nomination because of Trump’s stated goal of overturning the

ACA and selecting Supreme Court justices who would do so.

The current ACA case before the court bears a resemblance to previous Supreme Court cases where Barrett criticized the majority opinion’s reasoning. But it hinges largely on the legal concept of “severability,” or

whether a smaller part of the law that is found unconstitutional can be wiped out while leaving the rest of the law intact.

Trump and the challengers say that the individual mandate is such a central provision to the whole 2010 law that if the Supreme Court finds it

unconstitutional, that in turn means the remainder of the 2,000-page law “must also fall.”

Traditionally the federal courts look at what Congress intended to accomplish with a law, and the House and other defense of the law argue that the intent is clear. Congress, they say, eliminated the

penalty for individuals who don’t purchase health insurance but left the rest of the 2010 law intact and operating for the past three years.

Durbin said Barrett had already tipped her hand in the case by pointing to the severability argument as “key” to the case when other issues are also at play.