Kelly Gooch | June 18, 2021
The nation’s highest court has ruled that the ACA remains the law in the U.S., Bloomberg News reported June 17.
A coalition of Republican-leaning states, led by Texas, asked the Supreme Court to invalidate the ACA. They argued that the court should strike down the health law because in December 2017, Congress eliminated the ACA’s tax penalty for failing to purchase health insurance. They argued the individual mandate is inseverable from the rest of the law and became unconstitutional when the tax penalty was eliminated; therefore, the entire health law should be struck down.
But the justices voted 7-2 to uphold the ACA, saying that the coalition could not legally challenge the health law, according to Bloomberg News.
“We conclude that the plaintiffs in this suit failed to show a concrete, particularized injury fairly traceable to the defendants’ conduct in enforcing the specific statutory provision they attack as unconstitutional. They have failed to show that they have standing to attack as unconstitutional the act’s minimum essential coverage provision. Therefore, we reverse the Fifth Circuit’s judgment in respect to standing, vacate the judgment, and remand the case with instructions to dismiss,” Justice Stephen Breyer wrote for the majority, according to ABC News.
Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch voted against the majority.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case in November, and at the time, a majority of Supreme Court justices indicated they supported upholding the ACA.
Source: Becker’s Healthcare
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/legal-regulatory-issues/supreme-court-upholds-aca.html