Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to Affordable Care Act

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)