The government of Donald Trump asked the American Supreme Court Thursday to repeal the Obamacare law which established the emblematic health insurance of the former democratic president Barack Obama, in full pandemic of Covid-19.
This new offensive against the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the official name of Obamacare, represents crucial issues for millions of Americans but also for candidates for the presidential election in November. Donald Trump has vowed to repeal Obamacare if he is re-elected, it was already one of his main campaign promises in 2016. Since coming to power in 2017, more than seven million people have lost their insurance, according to the Gallup Institute. Approved in 2010 despite fierce opposition from Republicans, Obamacare has helped insure nearly 20 million additional Americans but has not ceased to be challenged in the political arena and in court.
An endless judicial mille-feuilles
Donald Trump and the Republicans are working to undermine its foundations, especially the obligation to take out insurance under penalty of sanctions ("individual mandate"), with tax measures and legal action after suffering a bitter failure in 2017 at Congress. The elected republican managed to remove in 2017 the fine sanctioning the absence of insurance. Several republican states then introduced new legal actions arguing that the law no longer held.
In December 2018, a conservative federal judge in Texas agreed with them, ruling that the whole law was becoming unconstitutional. A judgment partially validated on appeal last December by a federal court which ruled the obligation to insure illegal but left to another court the task of judging if the law was entirely void.
Democrats then seized the Supreme Court which agreed, at the beginning of March, to re-examine Obamacare, which it had already validated in 2012 then 2015. For its part, the Ministry of Justice argues in its appeal filed Thursday evening that "the mandate individual cannot be separated from the rest of the law ”. Since "it is henceforth unconstitutional due to the suppression of the fine by the Congress", estimates the ministry, "the ACA in its entirety must be repealed". The ministry also challenges the ACA's obligation to insurers to care for all claimants whether sick or in good health, including people with medical histories.
23 million Americans at risk of being uninsured
The Supreme Court could examine the case from October for a decision that would come after the presidential election in November in which health issues are a major issue.
Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi condemned the Trump administration's initiative and called it "an act of unimaginable cruelty" during the pandemic. According to her, 130 million Americans with a medical history could lose the ACA guarantees and up to 23 million people may find themselves without any insurance. "There is no legal justification and no moral excuse for the Trump administration's disastrous efforts to demolish health coverage," she said.
The United States is the country most in mourning for coronavirus, with more than 120,000 deaths. The pandemic is far from over in the country, especially in the southern and western states.
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