Protesters against the Obamacare law in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in March 2012.
The U.S. Department of Justice told the Supreme Court on Wednesday (Feb. 10) that it no longer considers the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, unconstitutional, while urging the court to uphold the health care law.
This is the first Time since Biden took office in January that the Justice Department has reversed its legal position.
The Supreme Court is currently considering a challenge to Obamacare brought by Texas and other Republican states. And the Justice Department under former President Trump (R-Texas) had strongly supported the Texas view in legal briefs, and in oral arguments last November.
The Trump Administration argued that the bill should be invalidated and unenforced because a key provision of the bill, the Individual Mandate, was ruled unconstitutional by the courts.
The Trump administration and Republicans have previously introduced lower-cost health policies to weaken and eventually repeal Obamacare. They say Obamacare represents government overreach that has led to cost increases.
In a two-page letter to the court, Deputy Attorney General Edwin S. Kneedler wrote, “Following the change in administration, the Department of Justice has reconsidered the government’s position in these cases. The purpose of this letter is to inform the Court that the Commonwealth no longer adheres to the conclusions in the briefs previously filed by the respondents.”
In his letter, Nadler laid out the position of the Biden Administration and the Democratic Party, telling the court that if the court finds the individual mandate provision unconstitutional, then the court should find that “the provision is severable from the rest of the bill.”
In December 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled by a 2-1 vote that the primary funding mechanism of the original bill, the individual mandate provision, had been eliminated by Congress and, therefore, did not need to be enforced.
“The individual mandate provision is unconstitutional because it is no longer considered a tax,” the ruling said. “With respect to the rest of the bill, we remand it to the district court, which is required to provide further analysis of the current provisions of the ACA.”
The lawsuit, first filed by the Republican state and two private parties, asks the court to rule that the entire bill must be invalidated where the individual mandate provision is unconstitutional, and where the provision is indivisible from the rest of the statute.
The case won its first victory in Texas District Court and went on to be upheld by the circuit court judge, who remanded the case to the district court for a more detailed review of the severability of the individual mandate.
But before the district court completed that review, state officials from the Blue States Alliance asked the Supreme Court in January 2020 to take the case and review the lower court’s ruling. The House of Representatives filed a similar appeal that month asking the court to review the lower court’s ruling.
Oral arguments were held on Nov. 10, 2020. The Trump administration, which has refused to defend Obamacare, and red states, led by Texas, have argued that the individual mandate provision is unconstitutional and that the entire bill should therefore be overturned. At the same time, however, blue states and the House of Representatives reject the idea that Obamacare as a whole should be overturned.
Both sides have now presented oral arguments to the Supreme Court, which is expected to rule on the case at the end of June.
Moreover, since Biden took office, Democrats have vowed to strengthen the law. The $1.9 trillion bailout being drafted by House Democrats includes provisions related to the first expansion of Obamacare in more than a decade.
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