Supreme Court to Review Affordable Care Act Next Term - The Wall Street Journal

The high court is unlikely to render a decision on the Affordable Care Act before... — The high court is unlikely to render a decision on the Affordable Care Act before the 2020 presidential election.
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Brent Kendall

The Wall Street Journal

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Brent.Kendall@wsj.com

Updated March 2, 2020 1:16 pm ET

WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court agreed to once again decide the fate of the Affordable Care Act, but it likely won’t do so before the 2020 presidential election.

The court on Monday announced it would consider an appeal by a group of Democratic-led states that are defending the 2010 health-care overhaul legislation, a signature achievement for President Obama. The ACA is under legal attack from a group of Republican states, which found a new tactic for challenging the law in 2018—based on a provision requiring Americans to buy health insurance or pay a penalty—after the Supreme Court previously preserved the ACA in decisions in 2012 and in 2015.

The justices could rule on the viability of every provision of the sweeping law. In addition to the mandate that most people carry health insurance, the ACA barred insurers from denying coverage—or charging more—to people with existing health conditions. It also allowed young adults to stay on their parents’ plans until they turned 26 and expanded the availability of Medicaid coverage for limited-income Americans.

The ACA contains hundreds of other provisions, including many that aren’t directly tied to health insurance markets, such as requirements regarding nutritional labeling on restaurant menus and vending machines.

The high court isn’t placing the case on an accelerated schedule, meaning the justices won’t get to it before their summer break. Instead, the case will be scheduled for the court’s next term, which begins in October 2020 and runs through the following June.

The timing means the decision is highly unlikely to come until after election day, leaving the ACA in legal limbo. The slower timeline also means the Trump administration won’t necessarily be forced to grapple with U.S. health-care policy before voters go to the polls.

The New Orleans-based Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in December that the individual insurance mandate, a central feature of the ACA, was unconstitutional.

The ruling avoided saying whether the rest of the sprawling health law could remain in force without the mandate. The appeals court instead ordered the Texas judge who first heard the case to reconsider his decision that no part of the ACA remained valid.

The health law remains in effect during the litigation. President Trump has pledged to roll it back and has long promised to release his own health plan. His administration isn’t defending the law in court and instead is siding with the challengers in the case.

Republican plaintiffs, led by the state of Texas, found an opening to challenge the law anew after Congress in 2017 reduced the insurance-mandate penalty to $0. The change came as part of a broad tax-overhaul package passed by a GOP Congress and signed by Mr. Trump.

Lower courts agreed with that argument. Congress’s taxing power was central to the majority opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts in 2012 to uphold the insurance mandate.

The law’s supporters say it doesn’t make sense that the mandate would suddenly become unconstitutional now that it is less burdensome.