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 The high court left intact a ruling by the San Francisco-based 9th
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that threw out the lawsuit.
The court’s action in an unsigned order was a victory for Obama
administration, which has faced a barrage of legal challenges to the
2010 Affordable Care Act, often called Obamacare. The court is
currently weighing a separate case challenging health insurance
subsidies that are key to Obamacare’s implementation. A ruling is
due by the end of June.
In the case that the justices rejected on Monday, Arizona-based
business owner Nick Coons and Dr. Eric Novack, an orthopedic
surgeon, sued in 2011 in litigation backed by a conservative legal
group.
Among other things, they challenged the Independent Payment Advisory
Board, or IPAB, a 15-member government panel dubbed by some
Republicans as a "death panel" because of its intended role in
trimming costs within Medicare, the government healthcare program
for the elderly and disabled.
Lower courts threw out the lawsuit. In its August 2014 ruling, the
appeals court said that the plaintiffs had not shown they had
suffered any harm that they could sue over.
On the IPAB claim, the court noted that under the terms of the
healthcare law, the board acts only if Medicare spending increases
at a certain level. The earliest it could ever take any action that
could potentially reduce Novack’s Medicare reimbursements would be
in 2019.
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The plaintiffs, represented by the Phoenix, Arizona-based
conservative Goldwater Institute, also challenged a provision of the
law, known as the individual mandate, that requires Americans to
obtain health insurance. Those claims were also rejected.
The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the individual
mandate in 2012.
The case on which the court acted on is Coons v. Lew, U.S. Supreme
Court, No. 14-525.
(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)
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