America’s Health Insurance Plans wants the U.S. Supreme Court to
decide quickly on whether the Affordable Care Act is valid.
In an
amicus, or “friend of the court” brief, AHIP requested the court “remove the
overhanging legal uncertainty that undermines the stability of coverage
for nearly 300 million Americans.”
Matt
Eyles, AHIP’s president and CEO, said in a statement that “Every
American deserves affordable coverage and high-quality care. This has been –
and always will be – our commitment.”
The 5th Circuit
Court of Appeals is expected to hand down a ruling on whether the ACA is
unconstitutional. Arguments centered on the Republican-led Congress’ passage of
the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017, which
eliminated – or zeroed out - the ACA’s penalty for people who did not have
health insurance. ACA opponents argue that eliminating the individual mandate
penalty amounted to a government-ordered command to buy health insurance. If
the penalty is unconstitutional, then the entire law must fall.
“The
district court’s original decision to invalidate the entire ACA was misguided
and wrong,” the AHIP statement says. The organization believes the ACA “should
continue in operation despite its zeroing out of the mandate.”
“We are
confident that the Supreme Court will ultimately recognize that zeroing out the
mandate was never intended to wreak havoc across the entire American health
care system.
“As we
continue to engage in the legal process, health insurance providers remain
committed to serving all of their members, and to strengthening affordability,
access and choices for every American.”
The
AHIP brief went on to say invalidation of the ACA “would wreak havoc on the
health care system. Congress could not have intended that result in 2010, when
it enacted one of the most comprehensive and far-reaching pieces of health care
legislation in over 50 years. And Congress did not intend that result in 2017,
when it zeroed out the tax payment for forgoing health coverage without
repealing any other ACA provision.”
The ACA
“is not a tapestry that unravels by pulling upon a single thread (i.e., the
individual mandate),” the brief said.
“Rather,
the ACA’s multitude of wide-ranging reforms, which rest on a variety of
statutory foundations scattered across the U.S. Code, affect every health
insurance market (not just the individual market) and every American with
coverage (not just those who purchased coverage on the exchanges).”
AHIP
also noted eliminating the ACA’s protections for people with pre-existing
conditions “would upend the individual markets and throw individuals and health
insurance providers back to an obsolete system that cannot be revived without
serious disruption to American lives and the nation’s economy.”
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