Senate Republicans Rush Supreme Court Appointment That Trump Admits Will Strike Down the Affordable Care Act

SCOTUS Nominee Is “On Record Criticizing Past Judicial Decisions Upholding The Affordable Care Act”

President Tweeted That The Supreme Court Ending The Increasingly Popular Health Care Law Would Be “A Big WIN”

Senate Republicans are rushing to fill a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court as President Trump admitted this weekend the nominee will help overturn the Affordable Care Act and eliminate protections for pre-existing conditions. The GOP position that overturning the health care law would be “a big WIN for the USA!” underscores the serious risk the anti-health care nominee poses to coverage protections that Americans rely on – especially in the middle of the pandemic.

Republicans in the Senate have already expressed their support for quickly confirming a nominee who is facing growing scrutiny over her written track record of “skeptical comments” on past Supreme Court decisions upholding the health care law. One essay argued Republican-appointed Chief Justice John Roberts had “pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute” with his 2012 decision to uphold the law. As one legal expert put it: “I think ACA supporters should be concerned.”

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Axios: Trump says Supreme Court ending Obamacare would be “a big WIN”

• President Trump on Sunday tweeted that the Supreme Court invalidating the Affordable Care Act would be “a big WIN for the USA!”

• Democrats have argued that confirming a Trump-appointed justice to the Supreme Court would put the Affordable Care Act, which protects pre-existing conditions, in jeopardy. Trump’s Supreme Court pick, Amy Coney Barrett, has written that she disagreed with Chief Justice John Roberts when he ruled to uphold the law.

• “President Trump just admitted his nominee will strike down the Affordable Care Act,” tweeted Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) in response.

• Reality check: Trump has said that he is protecting pre-existing conditions, despite the fact that they are only at risk because of a Republican lawsuit (supported by the Trump administration) to dismantle the Affordable Care Act.

• The Supreme Court is expected to hear the ACA case the week after the election.

NBC News: Trump Court pick Amy Coney Barrett’s past critiques on Obamacare face scrutiny

• Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Donald Trump’s newly announced Supreme Court nominee, whose appointment could cement a conservative court majority for a generation, is on record criticizing past judicial decisions upholding the Affordable Care Act.

• In a 2017 Notre Dame Law School article, Barrett quoted from Justice Antonin Scalia, who protested 2012 and 2015 rulings upholding core provisions of the law and lamented that Obamacare should be renamed “SCOTUScare.”

• Barrett’s scholarly writings are giving fuel to Democratic arguments that her appointment could upend health coverage for 20 million Americans. They provide her opponents with a paper trail of comments on the politically salient health care law that they lacked with Trump’s prior court nominees Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch.

• “For Justice Scalia and those who share his commitment to uphold text, the measure of a court is its fair-minded application of the rule of law, which means going where the law leads. By this measure, it is illegitimate for the Court to distort either the Constitution or a statute to achieve what it deems a preferable result,” Barrett wrote in the January 2017 article.

• Regarding a 2012 ruling upholding the law’s individual mandate by a 5-to-4 margin, National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, Barrett also criticized Chief Justice John Roberts, saying he had “pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute.”

• “I think ACA supporters should be concerned,” [Nicholas Bagley, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School] said in an email.

###