June 17, 2021
In a 7-2 Supreme Court
decision, the entire Act is upheld
Carson
City, NV –
Today, Nevada Attorney General Aaron D. Ford announced that the U.S. Supreme
Court dismissed a challenge by the former Trump Administration and states with
Republican leadership to overturn the Affordable Care Act (ACA). In a seven-two
decision, the justices ruled to leave the law intact, preserving health care
coverage for millions of Americans.
In
2018, the Department of Justice under the former Trump Administration and 18
states led by Texas filed a lawsuit to invalidate the ACA. They argued that the
ACA’s insurance-purchase mandate became unconstitutional when the 2017 Tax Cuts
and Jobs Act passed by Congress after more than 70 failed attempts to “repeal
and replace” the ACA made just one change to the law: It zeroed out the penalty
for failure to comply with the mandate. Based on this minor change, the
Department of Justice and these states attempted to invalidate the entire ACA.
In
today’s ruling, the Supreme Court Justices concluded that the challengers had
no legal right to bring the case because Congress did nothing unlawful by
reducing the mandate penalty to $0.
“The
Affordable Care Act is a critical lifeline to Nevada families and families all
over the country, which is why my office made it a priority to defend this
important law,” said AG Ford. “Nevadans, I have always promised to
defend your rights to health care, and today you are seeing the results of this
promise. The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling protects millions of Americans and the
hundreds of thousands of Nevada families depending on the Affordable Care Act
for access to quality and affordable healthcare. I could not be more proud of
what we have accomplished today.”
Shortly
after taking office, AG Ford joined a coalition of 20 states taking immediate
action to defend the ACA. AG Ford filed a brief in the U.S. Supreme Court defending the ACA and urging the
Supreme Court to dismiss the suit. The Court agreed to review a recent Fifth
Circuit decision that held the ACA's individual mandate unconstitutional and
called into question whether the remaining provisions of the law could still
stand. The decision would jeopardize Medicaid expansion, critical public health
programs that help fight COVID-19, and subsidies that help working families’
access care, among countless others.
The coalition of attorneys general defended the ACA in its
entirety, supported by a bipartisan group of amici including scholars,
economists, public health experts, hospital and provider associations, patient
groups, counties, cities, and more. The attorneys general noted that while the Fifth Circuit held
that the individual mandate is unconstitutional, it sidestepped on the validity
of the ACA’s remaining provisions.
In their brief filed in the U.S. Supreme Court, the attorneys
general made clear that patients, doctors, hospitals, employers,
workers, states, pharmaceutical companies and more would be negatively
impacted if the ACA should fall. The brief also highlighted important
advancements in healthcare access made under the ACA. In Nevada, the
health care of hundreds of thousands of Nevadans was at risk including:
- 211,700 Nevadans
are enrolled through Medicaid expansion;
- 636,208 Nevadans
with traditional Medicaid coverage, including seniors, people with
disabilities, and children, were at risk; and
- 303,343 Nevada
children’s care was at risk.
If the Affordable Care Act had been repealed:
- 282,000 Nevadans could
have lost coverage. According to the Urban Institute,
282,000 Nevadans would lose coverage by repealing the Affordable Care Act,
leading to a 75 percent increase in the uninsured rate;
- 19,000 Nevada
young adults with their parents’ coverage could have lost care. Because of the
Affordable Care Act, millions of young adults are able to stay on their
parents’ care until age 26;
- 74,000 Nevada
children could have lost their coverage. Almost three
million children nationwide gained coverage thanks to the ACA. If the law had
been overturned, many of these children could have lost their insurance;
- 95,900 Nevada
Latinos could have lost coverage. The percentage of people gaining
health insurance under the ACA was higher for Latinos than for any other
racial or ethnic group in the country. According to a study from Families
USA, 5.4 million Latinos nationwide would lose coverage if the lawsuit
succeeds in overturning the ACA; and
- Nevadans could
have lost important federal health care funding. The Urban
Institute estimates that a full repeal of the ACA would reduce federal
spending on Nevadans’ Medicaid/CHIP care and Marketplace subsidies by $1.2
billion.
In addition to Nevada, other states who participated in this
coalition to defend the ACA include: California, Colorado, Connecticut,
Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts,
Michigan, Minnesota (by and through its Department of Commerce), Nevada, New
Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia,
Washington, and the Governor of Kentucky.
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