Why US Supreme Court Ruled To Save Affordable Care Act

Former Federal Prosecutor, Jeffrey Toobin, said the Supreme Court during yesterday’s decision, was implicitly asking the Republicans to fight the law outside of the courts.

A last gasp move to quash the Affordable Care Act met yet another abortive fate, as the Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the decision to preserve the law that ensures healthcare delivery coverage to millions of Americans.

On a 7-to-2 vote, the court struck out the latest challenge from Republican-led states and endorsed by the Trump administration. Justice Stephen G. Breyer’s decision was premised on the technicality that neither the states nor individual plaintiffs had legal standing to challenge the law, which also survived challenges in 2012 and 2015.

President Joe Biden had said he plans to consolidate the initiative to offer more Americans health-care coverage.

The court’s decision brings to bed to a decade-long attempt to overturn the law through the courts. Even when Republicans controlled both chambers, Congress was never able to muster the votes to quash the Act.

Former president Donald Trump had vowed to end the law legislatively, and through his nominees to the Supreme Court. But in Thursday’s decision, only one of his three nominees to the court said the law should fall.

According to Jeffrey Toobin, CNN Chief Legal Analyst and former federal prosecutor, while the Supreme Court may have dismissed the case via a legal technicality, there is a underlying undertone which resounds as a message to the Republicans to seek alternative means of challenging the Affordable Care Act.

“This was a bad case. This was a long shot for the plaintiffs from day one. They won before from very conservative lower court judges, but in the oral argument of this case, it certainly looked like the message the Chief Justice Roberts has been trying to send for almost a decade is that, if you conservatives want to overturn the Affordable Care Act, do it through the political process. Don’t trust the courts to do it because we are not gonna do it,” Toobin said during a virtual session on CNN.

“Even though the Supreme Court didn’t address the merits for a third time, I think they are sending a very strong message that they are done with existential challenges to the Affordable Care Act for good.”

Also, Abby Phillip, host of CNN Inside Politics Sunday described the decade-long war against the Affordable Care Act by Republicans as a political and legal loser.

“Politically, something very significant is the result of this decision. I think it virtually kills this issue of changing the Affordable Care Act, repealing it, replacing it. That issue, politically right now, is more or less dead”

“It has been a loser for Republicans from a political standpoint for several elections now, even when Republicans had control over the White House, control over the House and the Senate, they were not able to legislatively change this law in a significant way. As a result of that, this decision now makes it even more unlikely. Yes, the dynamic of the Supreme Court can change, but its a political loser for Republicans and its a legal loser for Republicans.”

Ronny Ikpoto

Edidiong-Ronny Ikpoto holds a First Class degree in Media Studies. He shares a healthy enthusiasm for journalism, social & literary criticism, and creative writing.