Civic Register
| 6.17.21
Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to Affordable Care Act
How do you feel about the Court’s decision?
What’s the story?
- The Supreme Court issued a 7-2 opinion on Thursday which dismissed a challenge to the Affordable Care Act (ACA or Obamacare) made by conservative states, which were later joined by a pair of individuals, for lack of standing.
- The case, known as California v. Texas (consolidated with Texas v. California), concerned whether the ACA’s mandate that Americans obtain health insurance coverage was rendered unconstitutional by the enactment of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which zeroed out the penalty for not complying with the individual mandate; and if it is unconstitutional, whether the rest of the ACA can stay in effect because the provision is severable from the rest of the law.
- A federal district court held that the plaintiffs had standing to mount the legal challenge to Obamacare and ruled that the entire law was rendered unconstitutional.
- On appeal, the Fifth Circuit agreed with the district court regarding the plaintiffs' standing and the unconstitutionality of the individual mandate, but disagreed with the district court in terms of the severability of the unconstitutional provision and instead found that striking down Obamacare in its entirety would be unjustified.
- The Supreme Court’s decision held the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge Obamacare’s individual mandate because they couldn’t demonstrate a past or future injury related to the enforcement of the mandate, and remanded the case to lower courts with instructions to dismiss it.
What did the justices say?
- Justice Stephen Breyer wrote the majority opinion and was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Justice Elena Kagan, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Breyer’s opinion read in part:
“Texas and 17 other States brought this lawsuit against the United States and federal officials. They were later joined by two individuals (Neill Hurley and John Nantz). The plaintiffs claim that without the penalty the Act’s minimum essential coverage requirement is unconstitutional. Specifically, they say neither the Commerce Clause nor the Tax Clause (nor any other enumerated power) grants Congress the power to enact it. They also argue that the minimum essential coverage requirement is not severable from the rest of the Act. Hence, they believe the Act as a whole is invalid. We do not reach these questions of the Act’s validity, however, for Texas and the other plaintiffs in this suit lack the standing necessary to raise them.”
- Justice Clarence Thomas noted in a concurring opinion that while he has sided against the ACA in past opinions and is sympathetic to the dissenters’ desire to weigh in on the merits of the claim, the facts of the case do not support the plaintiffs’ standing:
“The plaintiffs failed to demonstrate that the harm they suffered is traceable to unlawful conduct. Although this Court has erred twice before in cases involving the Affordable Care Act, it does not err today.”
- Justice Samuel Alito wrote a dissenting opinion which was joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch and read in part:
“Today’s decision is the third installment in our epic Affordable Care Act trilogy, and it follows the same pattern as installments one and two. In all three episodes, with the Affordable Care Act facing a serious threat, the Court has pulled off an improbable rescue…
No one can fail to be impressed by the lengths to which this Court has been willing to go to defend the ACA against all threats. A penalty is a tax. The United States is a State. And 18 States who bear costly burdens under the ACA cannot even get a foot in the door to raise a constitutional challenge. So a tax that does not tax is allowed to stand and support one of the biggest Government programs in our Nation’s history. Fans of judicial inventiveness will applaud once again. But I must respectfully dissent.”
— Eric Revell
(Photo Credit: ACA: iStock.com / YinYang | SCOTUS: iStock.com / Timothy Epple)
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Somebody out there want to show standing?
This should never have made it this far in the court system and I agree with the decision. The problem is that the original ACA was passed down party lines with no input from the other party, so naturally they wish to oppose it. The problem is, it has been in place so long that they should accept it and move on to other things. You can't just say you are against it unless you have a reasonable replacement. Just like people that constantly complain - I tell them if you have a better solution great, but don't just oppose something without a new solution or because you don't like the party that started it.
Obamacare was the biggest flop ever. When I needed it most, they wanted me to pay $350/mo. This was not something that helped average Americans. Speaking as one who could not afford the “Affordable Care” that this supposedly gave. And I’m sorry. But I said from the start of this BS that anything mandating us as American citizens to do “anything” or else “here’s a massive fine” is against my constitutional freedoms as a human being existing on the planet. Do whatever you want with this ACA nonsense but I will never ever accept that this mandate / fine was or ever will be a good thing. #ProtectMyFreeWill
my neighbor's sister makes $88/hr on the computer. She has been laid off for 7 months but last month her paycheck was $15820 just working on the computer for a few hours. look at this website >>> www.BigLifestyles.com
The problem I see with expanding the ACA is since we’re comparing our health insurance to that of other countries, in European countries, yes, health care is guaranteed for their CITIZENS , NOT everyone. If you’re not a citizen, their health care is expensive. So all the illegal immigrants would NOT be insured using their standard.
We have a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who is afraid of court packing and thus the Democrats are not going to be as mad and hopefully not pack the court by ruling in favor of keeping OBUMMER care!
Challenges to the ACA are effectively over by the implicit norm of the three strikes rule. Good. Let’s win the midterms so we can get control of the Senate and the House so we can finally fix the damages done to the ACA by the Republican Senators that have been dead set against any thing but employer sponsored healthcare. The pandemic has proven what a short-sighted policy that relying upon employer sponsored healthcare was. … … … The ACA was once envisioned to be modeled quite closely upon the federal employee health insurance system (not the super Congressional health care that they provide to themselves). An employee could change healthcare plans every year, with complete coverage of pre-existing conditions (although their might be delays to qualify to prevent people from jumping in and out of the plan that best suits their particular new condition) and can choose from a wide variety of National and locality health care plans with clearly defined benefits, copays and options- everything from the very expensive and very inclusive postmaster generals plan to HSA medical disaster coverage plans. The National Plans offer more services than generally available with the same plans offered through employer sponsorship because they must compete annually with all other providers available. The rates are negotiated by the government per the kind and extent of coverage offered, and the plans are all presented in a common format with last year and next year rates and details readily available. It is very effective at controlling costs and tailoring health care coverage to meet someone’s personal needs - and they can change their mind annually if they want something different or a particular vendor’s coverage seems to be lacking. … … … That is mostly what the ACA was envisioned to be, and it is a broadly proven health insurance plan developed for most non-military executive branch employees. The government does not so much provide the plans as they just harvest the plans that meet their guidelines, negotiate rates for coverage options such as limits, deductibles and co-pays, and provides a central site for people to study options and costs to find the best solutions to meet their needs. If the government would choose to subsidize basic health care for everyone under this banner, such as a lot if the preventative things that catch medical conditions before they can become life threatening - everyone could have free health care including some age specific care for children, seniors or people with chronic long term conditions. And a lot of the elective things like sore knees or surgical treatment of back disorders can be covered with paid-for health care financed by a large number of people in a pool that would want that coverage should they ever need it. This is doable and for the most part has already been done.
Good. Stay away from the affordable care act. Or come up with something better.
Those claiming the the ACA is costly with limited coverage, please the history of the ACA. For nearly two years Obama made concession after concession to the Republicans, trying to get bipartisan support. After the last concession he made for Grassley, he asked him if enough had finally been conceded to finally get Senate Republican Support. Grassley said no, the Republicans would not support it no matter what changes were made. This is an example of the obstructionist party’s tactics of rope-a-doping legislation they do not like without ever having to publicly declare their lack of support for legislation broadly supported by the electorate- just like they are doing now. After Obama pushed the legislation through, Republicans continued to gut it by challenging the temporary provisions made to get it started and blocked any of the legislation to improve and/or make temporary provisions permanent. … … … So, if you want to punish those who gutted the ACA as a political tactic to keep the Democratic Party from getting too many political points, I suggest you join the movement to excise Republican Senators for this and the many other tragedies that are all on them. I have trouble finding anything that the Republican’s have sponsored all on their own that benefit the American people unless those benefits were spin offs from legislation designed to support the donors or themselves. I can’t count high enough, the number of things that they have sponsored which has harmed the people or the country just to support their lust for political power, the perks of office and their dark money benefactor’s sponsored gravy train to buy Republican political influence to support the donors interests.
Good. We deserve better. We deserve Universal Healthcare that is not dependent upon who you’re employed by, what family you’re born into, or who you’re married to, like every other modern nation in the world. Instead we spend our time and energy defending an expensive, broken system.
Thank you Jimk. I have just as much admiration for your posts. They are always well thought out and always worth my time. I learn a lot from your posts and it's easy to see why you have so many followers.
Looks like all of that defending and praising of Beer Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Island were for nothing because they both just ruled with the “Libs” to save Obamacare! It’s time for CONservatives to finally admit defeat and accept Obamacare as the law of the land! So much for all that court-packing.
So glad to hear that the ACA will be able to continue saving lives
I’m glad the Supreme Court didn’t take millions of Americans off their insurance coverage in the middle of the pandemic. I’m also glad that it remains in tact so improvements can be made.
THE SUPREME COURT SHOULD BE MADE TO HAVE OBAMACARE FOR THEIR ONLY HEALTH INSURANCE ALONG WITH THE DEMONCRATS IN THE SENATE & THE HOUSE!
The law is literally unconstitutional simply by the origination clause. Screw standing.
No one can't afford Care Act..🤢😡🤮🤬
I’m glad the Supreme Court is not going to remove mIllions of peo
trumplicans don’t like the ACA because a black POTUS signed it into law. They’ve tried over 2,000 times to get rid of it despite the fact that it would leave many with no coverage. The ridiculous element to the trumplican’s desire to get rid of the ACA is that they have no proposed replacement.
in my opinion, the Court did a great job for the American people by this Decision. Now, something will need to be done about the high cost of health care. Fifty years ago, one doctor and one nurse ran a hospital. No one went bankrupt when a major illness struck because if the family could not pay, a charity showed up that would help out. Now, if someone is sick a whole team of healthcare members shows up to help. The problem is that all those team members get paid big bucks! I guess for now, people need to be thankful for all we have.