The Story:
The Trump administration is weighing in with the Supreme Court in a lawsuit brought by Republican state attorneys general. The AGs are asking the high court to strike down all of Obamacare, root and branch, because (they argue) it cannot properly be severed from the existence of a tax penalty for those who defy the insurance mandate. Since Congress has reduced that tax penalty to zero, the Supreme Court must strike the law as a whole. Another set of state AGs, from Democratic states, are opposing this argument and defending the law, formally known as the Affordable Care Act, as it stands.
Significance:
Much of the law is very popular, especially provisions that prevent private insurance companies from denying insurance on the basis of pre-existing conditions. At least as important: if the high court does strike down the ACA in the midst of a pandemic, millions of people could soon thereafter find themselves uninsured.
In Pill Form:
President Trump has repeatedly said that he supports insurance for those with pre-existing conditions. He has yet to propose a specific plan that would provide it, though, and the position his administration has taken in court, if adopted by SCOTUS, would put an end to the whole of the ACA scheme, inclusive of that.
