US President Donald Trump displays an Executive Order on healthcare after signing as guests applaud, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House Thursday, in Washington DC. Trump moved to undermine Obamacare late Thursday by cutting off subsidies to health insurance companies for low-income patients. Photo: VCG
The US Supreme Court appeared inclined Tuesday to reject President Donald Trump administration arguments and let stand former president Barack Obama's signature healthcare program, ending the threat to the insurance coverage of 20 million people in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
At least five of the nine justices appeared unreceptive to the lawsuit arguing that the entire Affordable Care Act (ACA) is unconstitutional because of legal questions over consumer penalties - penalties already neutered by legislation.
Those five included Chief Justice John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh, conservatives that the opponents to the ACA, or Obamacare, hoped would support their case.
But both indicated that Congress' 2017 decision to reduce to zero the ACA's individual mandate penalty left the overall ACA law in place and on firm legal ground.
While the nine justices won't reveal their views before a decision is rendered, likely early 2021, the hearing was seen as a major defeat for Trump and other Republicans seeking to end the popular Democratic program.
Trump pledged to end the ACA when he succeed Obama in 2016.
The politically charged case threatened to demolish Obama's ground-breaking attempt to extend health insurance to tens of millions of Americans who could not afford it.
Attorneys for the Justice Department and Texas-led states opposed to the ACA argued that the individual mandate - you must have insurance or pay a fine - was illegal and rendered the entire law unconstitutional.
"It's hard for you to argue that Congress intended for the entire act to fall if the mandate were struck down, when the same Congress that lowered the penalty to zero did not even try to repeal the rest of the act," Roberts said.
Kavanaugh echoed that, telling the court that the "proper remedy" would be to simply sever the individual mandate from the law.
And while the four other conservative justices of the court raised doubts about the overall law, none seemed deeply hostile to it.
Even Justice Samuel Alito, one of the court's most reliable conservatives, told attorneys that, yes, the individual mandate was once seen as crucial for the ACA, like an aircraft part essential for flight.
But that has changed, he said. "The part has been taken out, and the plane has not crashed."
AFP