The 7-2 ruling declared that Texas and other challengers had no
legal standing to file their lawsuit seeking to nullify a law,
formally called the Affordable Care Act, that has enabled millions
of Americans to obtain medical coverage either through public
programs or private insurers. The decision was authored by liberal
Justice Stephen Breyer.
The justices did not decide broader legal questions raised in the
case about whether a key Obamacare provision was unconstitutional
and, if so, whether the rest of the statute should be struck down.
The provision, called the "individual mandate," originally required
Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a financial penalty.
"Today's U.S. Supreme Court decision is a major victory for all
Americans benefiting from this groundbreaking and life-changing
law," said Democratic President Joe Biden, whose administration
opposed the lawsuit.
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With three major challenges to Obamacare now having been resolved by
the justices, Biden added, "it is time to move forward and keeping
building on this landmark law." Biden also encouraged more Americans
to use Obamacare to obtain coverage.
Polling data has shown that Obamacare has become increasing popular
among Americans, including Republicans.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican who led the
challenge, vowed to continue to fight Obamacare. The individual
mandate, Paxton wrote on Twitter, "was unconstitutional when it was
enacted and it is still unconstitutional."
The law was the signature domestic policy achievement of Democratic
former President Barack Obama, who Biden served with as vice
president.
"This ruling reaffirms what we have long known to be true: the
Affordable Care Act is here to stay," Obama said.
Breyer wrote that none of the challengers, including Texas and 17
other states and the individual plaintiffs, could trace a legal
injury to the individual mandate, partly because a Republican-backed
tax law signed by Trump in 2017 had wiped out the financial penalty.
"Unsurprisingly, the states have not demonstrated that an
unenforceable mandate will cause their residents to enroll in
valuable benefits programs that they would otherwise forgo," Breyer
wrote.
Twenty states including Democratic-governed California and New York
and the Democratic-led House of Representatives intervened in the
case to try to preserve Obamacare after Trump had refused to defend
the law.
Conservative Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissented from
the ruling. Alito called the decision an example of "judicial
inventiveness" and labeled the individual mandate "clearly
unconstitutional."
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[to top of second column] |
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2021/Jun/18/images/ads/current/rohlfs_lda_072017.png) Republicans fiercely opposed
Obamacare when it was proposed, failed to repeal
it when they controlled both chambers of
Congress and have been unsuccessful in getting
courts to invalidate the law, including in 2012
and 2015 Supreme Court decisions.
Biden's administration in February urged the
Supreme Court to uphold Obamacare, reversing the
position taken by the government under Trump,
who left office in January.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee
whose 2020 confirmation hearing included
questions from Democrats over whether she would
vote to invalidate Obamacare, joined the
majority in the ruling.
'RELENTLESS EFFORTS'
If Obamacare had been struck down, up to 20
million Americans stood to lose medical
insurance and insurers again could have refused
to cover people with pre-existing medical
conditions. Obamacare expanded the Medicaid
state-federal healthcare program and created
marketplaces for private insurance.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, called
the ruling a "victory for Democrats' work to
defend protections for people with pre-existing
conditions against Republicans' relentless
efforts to dismantle them."
Biden has pledged to expand healthcare access
and buttress Obamacare. He and other Democrats
had criticized Republican efforts against
Obamacare at a time when the United States was
grappling with a deadly coronavirus pandemic.
Despite the Supreme Court's 6-3 conservative
majority, the Republican Obamacare challengers
came away disappointed in a ruling in which all
three liberal justices were joined by four of
the six conservative justices. Opposition to
Obamacare seems to have receded as a political
issue for many Republicans as their party has
emphasized other matters such as immigration,
voting restrictions and hot-button "culture war"
issues.
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The Supreme Court previously upheld Obamacare by
deeming the financial penalty under the
individual mandate a tax permissible under the
U.S. Constitution's language empowering Congress
to levy taxes. The penalty's elimination in 2017
meant the individual mandate could no longer be
interpreted as a tax provision and was therefore
unlawful, the Republican challengers argued.
A federal judge in Texas in 2018 ruled that
Obamacare, as structured following the 2017
change, violated the Constitution and was
invalid in its entirety. The New Orleans-based
5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that
the individual mandate was unconstitutional but
did not rule that the entire law should be
stricken.
(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Additional
reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Will
Dunham)
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