Several Democrats on the Judicial Committee nominating Supreme Court nominee Amy Connie Barrett asked about the Affordable Care Act today.
The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on November 10 over whether the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, should be repealed. It may be just weeks after the full Senate confirmed the appointment of the new Judge Barrett.
A group of Republican states led by Texas, with support from the Trump administration, asked judges to overturn the entire law, including provisions that expanded Medicaid to include low-income adults, and allowed children to stay on their parents’ policies until age 26 and guaranteed coverage for people with severe disease Pre-existing health conditions such as diabetes and cancer.
Trump has opposed the law from its inception and mocked the Supreme Court for endorsing it. He had pressured Congress to get rid of Obamacare to no avail. Now his administration is trying to do through litigation what it has failed to achieve in legislative terms. Trump’s third appointee to the nine-member Supreme Court could play a pivotal role in this effort.
Barrett will succeed Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died on September 18 and who consistently voted for the ACA. When judges first rejected the challenge to the constitutionality of the 2012 law, liberal Ginsburg was part of the narrow majority 5–4. So was the conservative Chief Justice John Roberts. He made the fifth vote, along with four liberals, to support Obama, But only after interpretation of a disputed ruling Requiring Americans to purchase health insurance to be valid under Congressional tax authority.
Roberts’ decision sparked conservative contempt ever since.
What did Barrett say about the case: Barrett, a professor of law at the University of Notre Dame at the time, wrote in Prof. 2017 Law Review Essay, “Chief Justice Roberts pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its reasonable meaning to save the law. He interpreted the penalty imposed on those without health insurance as a tax, which allowed him to preserve the law as a valid exercise of taxation power.”
And she continued, saying: “If he dealt with the payment as the law did – as a punishment – he would have repealed the law as being outside the commercial authority of Congress.”
On Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer referred to this article in his invitation to Barrett She is committed to stepping aside Who looks at the Supreme Court at law if confirmed before the court, saying that her “record in the anti-corruption law is full of evidence that demonstrates the need to step down.”
