The Supreme Court decided against Texas and other Republican-led states that are seeking to remove Obamacare.
The Court ruled 7-2 in favor of overturning an appeals court decision that had knocked down the law’s individual mandate section.
Texas and the other states who challenged the law failed to establish that they were damaged by it. According to Justice Stephen Breyer, the states failed to demonstrate that they had legal standing.
“Neither the individual nor the state plaintiffs have shown that the injury they will suffer or have suffered is ‘fairly traceable to the ‘allegedly unlawful conduct of which they complain,” Breyer wrote.
The ruling is a significant victory for the legislation, which was signed into law by former President Barack Obama in 2010. Since then, the law has become a critical component of the nation’s healthcare system, providing coverage to tens of millions of Americans.
Since then, President Joe Biden has promised to broaden its reach.
The ruling is the third time that Obamacare, often known as the Affordable Care Act, has prevailed in a Supreme Court lawsuit. Defenders of the law were concerned that the panel, which now has a 6-3 majority of Republican-appointed judges, would overturn the legislation, which conservatives have long despised.
“Each time, in each arena, the Affordable Care Act has prevailed,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said.“Let me say definitively: The Affordable Care Act has won, the Supreme Court has ruled, the ACA is here to stay. And now, we’re going to try to make it bigger and better.” He explained, “What a day.”
On Thursday, several conservatives on the court, including Chief Justice John Roberts, joined Breyer’s opinion. In addition, Justices Clarence Thomas, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett joined Breyer in voting yes.
Donald Trump appointed Kavanaugh and Barrett, whose administration tried unsuccessfully to repeal Obamacare during his one term in government. Congress completely removed the so-called individual mandate penalties under Obamacare in the 2017 tax reform, which reduced them to $0.
Texas and more than a dozen other Republican-led states quickly filed a lawsuit, claiming that the legislation had been changed in such a way that it was now illegal. The Supreme Court had previously sustained the mandate on the basis of Congress’s taxing power, but Republican-led states contended that the tax argument was no longer legitimate if the penalty was nonexistent.
Those states, backed by Trump’s Justice Department, claimed that if the individual mandate clause was determined to be unconstitutional, the entire Affordable Care Act should be repealed.
The lawsuit was heard in federal district court and the Fifth Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals, which ruled that the individual mandate was unconstitutional. However, 20 Democratic-led states, led by California, petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn the appeals court’s decision, stating that with the mandate reduced to zero, Americans have the option of buying insurance or not.
The Supreme Court decided to hear the case in March 2020.
A Trump spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the court’s decision from CNBC.
During Barrett’s confirmation hearings, Democrats warned that she was likely to vote in a way that would imperil Obamacare.
Both conservative Justices, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, dissented from the majority opinion.
“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,” Alito wrote in a dissent that was joined by Gorsuch. “In all three episodes, with the Affordable Care Act facing a serious threat, the Court has pulled off an improbable rescue.”
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