« Back

SCOTUS Rules 7-2 in Favor of ACA

Bill Haskell | June 17, 2021 11:48 am

Healthcare

Law

Writing for the majority on the ACA ruling, Justice Breyer:

“We do not reach these questions of the Act’s validity, Texas and the other plaintiffs in this suit lack the standing necessary to raise them.”

The lack of standing comes from:

“The states having brought the suit could not show that they will suffer any injury from the fact that some form of the mandate is still in effect, and threw out the lawsuit as a result.”

In the majority were Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

In dissent, Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, accused the majority of ducking the constitutional issues that conservatives for years have argued make the federal healthcare overhaul unconstitutional.

More later:

Still a developing report and waiting on additional emerging details.

CALIFORNIA ET AL. v. TEXAS ET AL.

3 Comments

Joel says:

June 17, 2021 at 12:56 pm

Is standing a constitutional issue? Asking for a friend.
- run75441 says:
  
  June 17, 2021 at 1:07 pm
  
  While the rules regarding standing do not appear in the Constitution, the Supreme Court based them on the authority granted by Article III of the Constitution and federal statutes. What is Standing? “Standing” is the legal right for a particular person to bring a claim in court. Federal Constitutional Standing Requirements Under Article III
Fred C. Dobbs says:

June 17, 2021 at 5:32 pm

Obamacare Is Here to Stay. Brace for New Health Care Battles.

Republicans in Congress have largely abandoned efforts to repeal the law. With the latest Supreme Court ruling, health policy now shifts to new territory.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/17/upshot/obamacare-supreme-court-decision.html?smid=tw-share

The era of existential fights over Obamacare has ended.

The Affordable Care Act has survived its third major Supreme Court challenge — what Justice Samuel Alito described in his dissenting opinion as an “epic trilogy.” The law has gone from a 5-4 majority in its favor in the first case to Thursday’s 7-2 split. The decision secures the health law as a major legacy of the Obama era — the largest expansion of health coverage in decades — after years of hard-fought and politically painful battles.

Obamacare enjoys higher-than-ever public support, with most Americans now favoring the law. Enrollment in the health law’s programs is at a record high. Democrats have moved from defending the 2010 law to expanding its benefits. While Obamacare remains a dirty word in some Republican circles, its repeal is no longer a focus of the party or a galvanizing issue among its voters.

For nearly a decade, Republicans ran and won many elections on the promise of ending Obamacare. But their failed bid to do so in 2017 changed their political priorities. That effort left them divided, bruised and on the wrong side of public opinion. Though President Donald Trump periodically threatened to return to repeal efforts, Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, who once called to eliminate the law “root and branch,” said in 2019 that he had no interest in revisiting the law before the next presidential election. At the 2020 Republican National Convention, the word Obamacare was not uttered onstage by any elected official. …

The Supreme Court did not dive into the merits of the case, but instead found that the plaintiffs did not experience any harms that would give them standing to challenge the law.

The waning repeal effort has given Democrats their first chance in a decade to press forward on a new campaign: moving the country toward a system of universal health coverage. It seems the end of a period when Democrats played constant defense, fighting back against legislative and legal challenges.

Their recent expansion of health insurance subsidies had widespread support in the party. The stimulus package that Democrats passed in January spent $34 billion to make coverage more affordable for nearly all Americans who purchase their own health plans. That change, however, was temporary and is currently set to expire at the end of 2022.

Fights about health policy are sure to remain heated, but they will be about what comes next. Democrats are still divided over many leading proposals, even if they remain united in their support of their past work. …