Supreme Court Appears Likely to Uphold Obamacare

[LAS14]

For a week or so now, I've heard glimmers of opinion that this would be true. That no one in the know ever thought it would be struck down. It was a good political football for both sides. Dems could champion Obamacare and Republicans could appease hard core base without incurring the wrath of people who would end up losing coverage.


https://www.npr.org/2020/11/10/933462515/supreme-court-appears-likely-to-uphold-obamacare

Updated at 4:35 p.m.

The Supreme Court, with a newly constituted and far more conservative majority, took another look at Obamacare on Tuesday. But at the end of the day, even with three Trump appointees, the Affordable Care Act looked as though it may well survive.

To many, it may have seemed like déjà vu.

Yes, the Supreme Court did uphold Obamacare eight years ago. It ruled that the so-called individual mandate, requiring people either to have health insurance or pay a penalty, was constitutional because it amounted to a tax. But in 2017, Congress decided it did not need the penalty and zeroed it out. At the time, not only congressional leaders but also President Trump crowed about "terminating" the mandate.

But on Tuesday, the Trump administration and a group of GOP-dominated states, including Texas, were back in the high court with a new challenge. They contended that because the mandate language is still on the books, and because the mandate was so interwoven with other provisions of the Affordable Care Act, the whole law should be struck down in its entirety.

[pat_k]

1. I sure hope so. I've been living in fear.

Even with Biden coming soon to put things right, the disruption could be awful.

With the cost of just ONE of the drugs for Rheumatoid arthritis at more than $1300 per week (Enbrel list price is $1,390 per weekly dose) I would be dropped like a hot potato -- or have premiums go through the roof, come re-enrollment in Dec.

[Buckeyeblue]

2. From the little bit of the argument that I listened to

It seemed the justices had two questions for th he plaintiffs. First, if the individual mandate was $0, where is the actual harm to be remediated by the court. Sort of no harm, no foul. The second was did the plaintiffs have standing to file the case. The justices seemed skeptical of that.

I'm not an attorney but this is what I picked up listening.