SCOTUSblog By Amy Howe on Feb 10, 2021
Three months after the justices heard oral argument in the constitutional challenge to the Affordable Care Act, the Biden administration on Wednesday told the Supreme Court that it should uphold the entire law, a shift from the position taken by the Trump administration. With the process of writing the opinion in the case likely well underway, the federal government’s reversal is largely symbolic and unlikely to affect the outcome of the case, especially considering that a majority of justices seemed to agree at the Nov. 10 oral argument that even if the law’s individual insurance mandate is unconstitutional, the rest of the ACA can nonetheless survive.
In 2012, the Supreme Court – by a vote of 5-4 – rejected a challenge to the constitutionality of the mandate (the provision in the law that directs virtually all Americans to buy health insurance), with Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s four more liberal justices concluding that it imposed a lawful tax on individuals who do not buy health insurance. The question at the center of the current case, California v. Texas, is whether the mandate is still constitutional after Congress reduced the penalty for failing to obtain health insurance from $695 to $0. If a majority of justices agree that the mandate is unconstitutional, the court must then decide whether the mandate can be separated from the rest of the ACA or whether the entire ACA must fall – a question known as severability.
The Trump administration refused to defend the law, arguing in the Supreme Court that, without the penalty, the mandate can no longer be justified as a tax and is therefore unconstitutional. Trump’s solicitor general, Noel Francisco, sided with a group of Republican-led states that argued the whole ACA is, as a result, invalid.
More:
https://www.scotusblog.com/2021/02/biden-administration-notifies-court-of-new-position-on-affordable-care-act/
