Supreme Court justices signal likely support for keeping ACA

Statements made by Supreme Court justices during the latest challenge to the Affordable Care Act indicate that the law is likely to be upheld (Source: “‘Obamacare’ likely to survive, high court arguments indicate,” Associated Press, Nov. 10).

Meeting remotely a week after the election and in the midst of a pandemic that has closed their courtroom, the justices on Tuesday took on the latest Republican challenge to the Obama-era health care law, with three appointees of President Donald Trump, an outspoken critic of the law, among them.

But at least one of those Trump appointees, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, seemed likely to vote to leave the bulk of the law intact, even if he were to find the law’s now-toothless individual mandate that everyone obtain health insurance to be unconstitutional.

“It does seem fairly clear that the proper remedy would be to sever the mandate provision and leave the rest of the act in place,” Kavanaugh said.

Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote two earlier opinions preserving the law, stated similar views, and the court’s three liberal justices are almost certain to vote to uphold the law in its entirety. That presumably would form a majority by joining a decision to cut away only the mandate, which now has no financial penalty attached to it. Congress zeroed out the penalty in 2017, but left the rest of the law untouched.