'Obamacare' survives: Court dismisses big challenge
By Mark Sherman
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court preserved insurance coverage for millions of Americans Thursday, rejecting the third major challenge to the national health care law known as "Obamacare."
The justices, by a 7-2 vote, left the entire Affordable Care Act intact in ruling that Texas, other Republican-led states and two individuals had no right to bring their lawsuit in federal court. The Biden administration says 31 million people have health insurance because of the law.
The law's major provisions include protections for people with existing health conditions, a range of no-cost preventive services, expansion of the Medicaid program that insures lower-income people and health insurance markets offering subsidized plans.
"The Affordable Care Act remains the law of the land," President Joe Biden said, saluting the ruling and calling for building on the health-care law that was enacted when he was vice president.
Also left in place is the law's now-toothless requirement that people have health insurance or pay a penalty. Congress rendered that provision irrelevant in 2017 when it reduced the penalty to zero.
The elimination of the penalty had become the hook that Texas and other GOP-led states, as well as the Trump administration, used to attack the entire law. They argued that without the mandate, a pillar of the law when it was passed in 2010, the rest of the law should fall, too.
And with a more conservative Supreme Court that includes three Trump appointees, opponents of Obamacare hoped a majority of the justices would finally kill off the law they have been fighting for more than a decade.
But the third major attack on the law at the Supreme Court ended the way the first two did, with a majority of the court rebuffing efforts to gut the law or get rid of it altogether.
Trump's three appointees to the Supreme Court — Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh — split their votes. Kavanaugh and Barrett joined the majority. Gorsuch was in dissent, signing on to an opinion from Justice Samuel Alito.
Justice Stephen Breyer wrote for the court that the states and people who filed a federal lawsuit "have failed to show that they have standing to attack as unconstitutional the Act's minimum essential coverage provision."
In dissent, Alito wrote, "Today's decision is the third installment in our epic Affordable Care Act trilogy, and it follows the same pattern as installments one and two. In all three episodes, with the Affordable Care Act facing a serious threat, the Court has pulled off an improbable rescue." Alito was a dissenter in the two earlier cases in 2012 and 2015, as well.
Like Alito, Justice Clarence Thomas was in dissent in the two earlier cases, but he joined Thursday's majority, writing, "Although this Court has erred twice before in cases involving the Affordable Care Act, it does not err today."
Because it dismissed the case for the plaintiff's lack of legal standing — the ability to sue — the court didn't actually rule on whether the individual mandate is unconstitutional now that there is no penalty for forgoing insurance. Lower courts had struck down the mandate, in rulings that were wiped away by the Supreme Court decision.
With the latest ruling, the ACA is "here to stay for the foreseeable future," said Larry Levitt, an executive vice president for the non-profit Kaiser Family Foundation, which studies health care.
"Democrats are in charge and they have made reinvigorating and building on the ACA a key priority," Levitt said. "Republicans don't seem to have much enthusiasm for continuing to try to overturn the law."
Republicans pressed their argument to invalidate the whole law even though congressional efforts to rip out the entire law "root and branch," in Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell's words, have failed. The closest they came was in July 2017 when Arizona Sen. John McCain, who died the following year, delivered a dramatic thumbs-down vote to a repeal effort by fellow Republicans.
Chief Justice John Roberts said during arguments in November that it seemed the law's foes were asking the court to do work best left to the political branches of government.
The court's decision preserves benefits that became part of the fabric of the nation's health care system.
Polls show that the 2010 health care law grew in popularity as it endured the heaviest assault. In December 2016, just before Obama left office and Trump swept in calling the ACA a "disaster," 46% of Americans had an unfavorable view of the law, while 43% approved, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll. Those ratings flipped and by February of this year 54% had a favorable view, while disapproval had fallen to 39% in the same ongoing poll.
The health law is now undergoing an expansion under Biden, who sees it as the foundation for moving the U.S. to coverage for all. His giant COVID-19 relief bill significantly increased subsidies for private health plans offered through the ACA's insurance markets, while also dangling higher federal payments before the dozen states that have declined the law's Medicaid expansion. About 1 million people have signed up with HealthCare.gov since Biden reopened enrollment amid high levels of COVID cases earlier this year.
Most of the people with insurance because of the law have it through Medicaid expansion or the health insurance markets that offer subsidized private plans. But its most popular benefit is protection for people with pre-existing medical conditions. They cannot be turned down for coverage on account of health problems, or charged a higher premium. While those covered under employer plans already had such protections, "Obamacare" guaranteed them for people buying individual policies.
Another hugely popular benefit allowed young adults to remain on their parents' health insurance until they turn 26. Before the law, going without medical coverage was akin to a rite of passage for people in their 20s getting a start in the world.
Because of the ACA, most privately insured women receive birth control free of charge. It's considered a preventive benefit covered at no additional cost to the patient. So are routine screenings for cancer and other conditions.
For Medicare recipients, "Obamacare" also improved preventive care, and more importantly, closed a prescription drug coverage gap of several thousand dollars that was known as the "doughnut hole."
–––––
Associated Press writer Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar contributed to this report.
Justices side with Catholic agency in foster care dispute
By Jessica Gresko
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously sided with a Catholic foster care agency that says its religious views prevent it from working with same-sex couples as foster parents. The justices said the city of Philadelphia wrongly limited its relationship with the group as a result of the agency's policy.
Philadelphia violated the Constitution in limiting its work with the agency, Catholic Social Services, the court said.
"The refusal of Philadelphia to contract with CSS for the provision of foster care services unless it agrees to certify same-sex couples as foster parents cannot survive strict scrutiny, and violates the First Amendment," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote.
Roberts said that the group "seeks only an accommodation that will allow it to continue serving the children of Philadelphia in a manner consistent with its religious beliefs; it does not seek to impose those beliefs on anyone else."
Catholic Social Services is affiliated with the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
Philadelphia learned in 2018 from a newspaper reporter that the agency would not certify same-sex couples to become foster parents. The city has said it requires that the two dozen-plus foster care agencies it works with not to discriminate as part of their contracts. The city asked the Catholic agency to change its policy, but the group declined. As a result, Philadelphia stopped referring additional children to the agency.
Catholic Social Services sued, but lower courts sided with Philadelphia.
There is no record that any same-sex couple has ever asked to work with the agency. In such a case, the couple would be referred to a different group, Catholic Social Services has said. Because of its beliefs, the Catholic agency also does not certify unmarried couples.
A lawyer with The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty who argued on behalf of Catholic Social Services cheered the ruling.
"It's a beautiful day when the highest court in the land protects foster moms and the 200-year-old religious ministry that supports them," Lori Windham said in a statement.
Court backs Nestle, Cargill in child slave labor suit
By Jessica Gresko
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday sided with food giants Nestle and Cargill in a lawsuit that claimed they knowingly bought cocoa beans from farms in Africa that used child slave labor.
The justices ruled 8-1 in favor of the food companies and against a group of six adult citizens of Mali that claimed they were taken from their country as children and forced to work on cocoa farms in neighboring Ivory Coast.
The justices said an appeals court was wrong to let the group's lawsuit go forward.
"Although respondents' injuries occurred entirely overseas, the Ninth Circuit held that respondents could sue in federal court because the defendant corporations allegedly made 'major operational decisions' in the United States. The Ninth Circuit erred by allowing this suit to proceed," Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a majority opinion for the court.
The case had been twice dismissed at an early stage before being revived by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. When the case was argued in December, then-President Donald Trump's administration backed Nestle and Cargill.
The argument of the group from Mali is that Minneapolis-based Cargill and the American arm of Switzerland-based Nestle "aided and abetted" their slavery as children by, among other things, buying cocoa beans from farms that used child labor. The group sued seeking to bring a class action lawsuit on behalf of themselves and who they say are thousands of other former child slaves.
Nestle and Cargill have said they have taken steps to combat child slavery and have denied any wrongdoing.
The case involves a law enacted by the very first Congress in 1789, the Alien Tort Statute, which permits foreign citizens to sue in U.S. courts for human rights abuses.
The question for the justices was whether it permits lawsuits against American companies.
The high court in recent years has limited the use of the Alien Tort Statute. In 2018, the court ruled that foreign businesses cannot be sued under the law. In that case, the court rejected an attempt by Israeli victims of attacks in the West Bank and Gaza to use U.S. courts to sue Jordan-based Arab Bank, which they said helped finance the attacks.
The case is Nestle USA v. Doe I, 19-416, and Cargill Inc. v. Doe I, 19-453.
