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The Affordable Care Act's Day(s) in Court

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Mark A. Hall
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Abstract

This article reviews the primary avenues of judicial challenge to the ACA, focusing on those that have reached, or have the potential to reach, the Supreme Court. The review demonstrates how deep-seated public policy opposition can be expressed through litigation.

Type
Symposium Articles
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 44 , Issue 4: Health Reform: Assessing the Affordable Care Act and Moving Forward , Winter 2016 , pp. 576 - 579
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2016

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References

A casual search of Westlaw for court decisions using the phrase “Affordable Care Act” produces almost 1000 “hits.” Cursory review of the first half of these, ranked by “relevance,” reveals that at least 200 are direct challenges to the legality of various aspects of the ACA, or to key administrative rules implementing the ACA (such as the rule allowing federal exchanges to pay premium subsidies). Some of these counts are multiple decisions in a single case, so the total number of distinct cases may be fewer than 200.Google Scholar
Examples not mentioned in text include: requiring Congressional employees to purchase their insurance through the small-group exchange in D.C.; the constitutionality of the Independent Payment Advisory Board (which the Obama Administration so far has not even initiated); whether state employers must pay the transitional reinsurance fee; and temporarily delaying the “employer mandate” or other ACA provisions. See Jost, T., “Implementing Health Reform: ACA Litigation Beyond King V. Burwell,” Health Affairs Blog, June 23, 2015, available at <http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2015/06/23/implementing-health-reform-aca-litigation-beyond-king-vburwell/> (last visited October 18, 2016).+(last+visited+October+18,+2016).>Google Scholar
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