The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear a case questioning the legality of the ACA on Nov. 10.
Five things to know:
1. At the center of the case is whether the health law should be struck down. In a brief filed June 25 in the case, the Trump administration argues the entire ACA is invalid because in December 2017, Congress eliminated the ACA's tax penalty for failing to purchase health insurance. The administration argues the individual mandate is inseverable from the rest of the law and became unconstitutional when the tax penalty was eliminated; therefore, the entire health law should be struck down.
2. The administration's brief was filed in support of a group of Republican-leaning states seeking to undo the ACA. Meanwhile, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra is leading a coalition of more Democratic states to defend the ACA before the Supreme Court.
3. The case goes before the Supreme Court days after media outlets projected Joe Biden as the next president of the U.S. President-elect Biden has said he seeks to expand government-subsidized insurance coverage and wants to the bring back the ACA's tax penalty for failing to purchase health insurance, according to The Wall Street Journal. If a change regarding the tax penalty did occur, the publication notes that Republicans' argument on severability would no longer apply.
4. The case also goes before the Supreme Court about two weeks after the Senate voted Oct. 26 to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. Ms. Barrett previously criticized Chief Justice John Roberts' 2012 opinion sustaining the law's individual mandate, The New York Times reported, but she said during her confirmation hearings in October that "the issue in the case is this doctrine of severability, and that's not something that I have ever talked about with respect to the Affordable Care Act."
5. According to the Journal, the Supreme Court is not expected to make a decision in the case until the end of June.
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