13 Mar Supreme Court to Rule Next Year on the ACA’s Validity

Supreme Court to Rule Next Year on the ACA’s Validity

After Congress eliminated the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) penalty concerning individuals who lack health coverage, lawsuits were created stating that the act was no longer constitutional. Continue reading this blog post from SHRM to learn more regarding the Supreme Courts’ rule on the ACA’s validity.

The U.S. Supreme Court will again rule on whether the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is constitutional, in whole or in part, during its term beginning this October, the court announced on March 2. A ruling is expected before the term ends in June next year.

In 2019, Congress eliminated the ACA’s penalty on individuals who lack health coverage—the so-called individual mandate. In the aftermath, several Republican state attorneys general filed a lawsuit claiming the ACA itself was no longer constitutional, while Democratic states and the House of Representatives, controlled by Democrats, stepped in to defend the statute.

Back in 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the ACA’s individual mandate as a justifiable exercise of Congress’s power to tax. But without an existing tax penalty, ACA critics charge that the health care statute itself, or at least the parts of the act closely linked to the individual mandate, are no longer constitutionally valid.

In December 2018, a Texas district court struck down the ACA but stayed its ruling pending appeal, concluding that the individual mandate is so connected to the law that Congress would not have passed the ACA without it. On appeal, in Texas v. United States, a split panel of the 5th Circuit instructed the district court to rehear the matter and “to employ a finer-toothed comb on remand and conduct a more searching inquiry into which provisions of the ACA Congress intended to be inseverable from the individual mandate.”

Now that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case, it will not go back to the district court judge for that analysis, leaving the high court free to uphold the entire ACA, uphold the statute but void provisions linked to the individual mandate, or strike down the law in full, although that draconian option is viewed as exceedingly unlikely by legal analysts. The same five justices that upheld the ACA in 2012 remain on the court.

The health law remains fully in effect during the litigation, including all employer coverage obligations and reporting requirements.

The Supreme Court’s Packed Schedule

The Supreme Court has placed five cases—including Texas v. United States—on the 2020 docket. This suggests that the hearing could be held in early or mid-October 2020, right before the 2020 election, although we may not know the oral argument schedule until later this spring or summer. In any event, a decision in Texas v. United States would not be expected until 2021 (and presumably not until June 2021).

It is worth noting that the Court will hear a separate ACA-related challenge on the final day of oral argument during its current term. On April 29, 2020, the Court will hear one hour of oral argument in the consolidated cases of Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania and Trump v. Pennsylvania. These cases focus on the validity of two Trump-era rules that created broad exemptions to the ACA’s contraceptive mandate for religious or moral reasons. And we are still waiting on a decision from the Court over whether insurers are owed more than $12 billion in unpaid risk corridor payments; oral argument was held in that challenge in December 2019 and a decision could be issued at any time.
(Health Affairs)

Lawsuit Stoked Confusion

America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the insurance industry’s leading lobbying group, applauded the justices’ decision to hear the lawsuit. “We are confident that the Supreme Court will agree that the district court’s original decision to invalidate the entire ACA was misguided and wrong,” said AHIP President Matt Eyles in a statement.

Association for Community Affiliated Plans (ACAP), a group that represents more than 70 safety-net plans, noted that the lawsuit “has cast a pall of uncertainty over the future of the individual insurance market,” according to ACAP CEO Margaret A. Murray.
(Fierce Healthcare)

5th Circuit Highlighted Suspect ACA Provisions

When the 5th Circuit instructed the district court to rehear the matter and to focus on those ACA provisions that Congress intended to be “inseverable from the individual mandate,” this suggested, legal analysts said, that the appellate court was unlikely to overturn the ACA in full. However, the appellate court might have struck down those parts of the law directly related to the individual mandate, such as the 5:1 ratio age band, under which insurers can’t charge seniors premiums more than five times what younger patients pay, and community rating, which prevents insurers from varying premiums within a geographic area based on age, gender, health status or other factors. 

The increase in revenue to insurers from the individual mandate was meant to offset the decrease from these restrictions. It’s unclear whether the U.S. Supreme Court will take a similar approach when it hears the case.
(SHRM Online)

SOURCE: Miller, S. (03 March 2020) “Supreme Court to Rule Next Year on the ACA’s Validity” (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/ResourcesAndTools/hr-topics/benefits/Pages/supreme-court-to-rule-next-year-on-CAs-validity.aspx