What happens if health care mandate is struck down

The 5 th Circuit agreed with the trial court that the individual plaintiffs have standing because they have spent money that they otherwise would not have spent, absent the individual mandate, to purchase health insurance. The dissent reached the opposite conclusion, finding that neither the individual nor the state plaintiffs has standing to bring the case.

The 5 th Circuit sent the case back to the trial court for additional analysis about which ACA provisions should survive without the individual mandate. The trial court may consider whether the federal government timely raised this argument and whether Supreme Court precedent supports limiting the remedy in this way.

Severability is a question of law, which the 5 th Circuit could have resolved without sending the case back to the trial court. The dissent agreed with the majority that the severability analysis should look to the intent of Congress when passing the TCJA in However, the dissent concluded that the fact that Congress changed the tax penalty amount to zero while leaving the rest of the ACA in place indicates that Congress intended for all of the other provisions to remain in effect.

The Supreme Court has agreed to review four legal questions in the case. First, the Court will consider whether Texas and the individual plaintiffs have standing to bring the lawsuit to challenge the individual mandate.

If the mandate is unconstitutional, the Court will decide whether the rest of the ACA can survive. Finally, if the entire ACA is held invalid, the Court will resolve whether the entire law should be unenforceable nationwide or whether it should be unenforceable only to the extent that provisions injure the individual plaintiffs. The case will be argued at the Supreme Court on November 10, The Court has allotted one hour and twenty minutes for oral argument, with 40 minutes for each side.

California will argue for 30 minutes of the time allotted to the parties defending the ACA, with the remaining 10 minutes argued by the House. The time allotted to the parties challenging the ACA will be evenly divided between the federal government and Texas, with 20 minutes for each.

The decision could come as late as the end of term in June If the Supreme Court finds that the individual mandate is unconstitutional and invalidates only that provision, the practical result will be essentially the same as the ACA exists today, without an enforceable mandate. If the Supreme Court adopts the position that the federal government took during the trial court proceedings and invalidates the individual mandate as well as the protections for people with pre-existing conditions, then federal funding for premium subsidies and the Medicaid expansion would stand, and it would be up to states whether to reinstate the insurance protections.

My administration continues to work to provide access to high-quality healthcare at a price you can afford, while strongly protecting those with pre-existing conditions.

The radical healthcare changes being proposed by the far left would strip Americans of their current coverage. I will not let this happen. Providing affordable, high-quality healthcare will always be my priority. They are trying to take away your healthcare, and I am trying to give the American people the best healthcare in the world.

The Fifth Circuit correctly held that the individual mandate is unconstitutional, and we look forward to the opportunity to further demonstrate that Congress made the individual mandate the centerpiece of Obamacare and the rest of the law cannot stand without it. In Texas v. This puts the administration in the position of opposing a law that includes the creation of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation CMMI , upon which the administration has built many of its cost-control programs in oncology care delivery and a highly touted program in kidney care designed to bring dialysis into the home.

The health and wellbeing of millions of Americans is on the line and we will keep fighting to protect their health care. Those include eliminating the Medicare "doughnut hole," cutting fraud and waste in Medicare, expanding Medicaid eligibility, and a number of public health provisions.

Because no side took the position that just the mandate should be severed, the Supreme Court appointed outside lawyers to argue that position. If the Supreme Court upholds the individual mandate, it would go into effect in If the court decides the mandate is unconstitutional, it will then decide whether it can be severed from the rest of the law.

If the court decides it is too enmeshed in the law to be removed, the entire ACA would be struck down. In his ruling from last year that the mandate is unconstitutional, Florida judge Roger Vinson said the provision cannot be removed from the rest of the law and, therefore, "the entire Act must be declared void.

Health policy experts are already predicting what would happen if the Supreme Court decides the mandate is unconstitutional but that the remainder of the law can stand. A recent RAND Corporation study found that premiums would actually not rise sharply, but that government spending could more than double and fewer people would be covered.