Supreme Court hears challenge to Obamacare’s no-cost preventative care mandate

WASHINGTON (Gray DC) - On Monday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case the challenges a provision of the Affordable Care Act that requires insurers to provide no-cost preventative health care services.

The case was brought forward by a group of Christian small business and Texas residents who argue that the provision is unconstitutional.

“They’re attacking the process by which they covered preventative services are selected,” said David Super, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center.

The provision requires certain health plans to provide cancer and diabetes screenings, some types of medication, contraceptives and more at no-cost to policyholders.

The group argues that because those services are selected by a task force that was not properly appointed by the president and Senate, the coverage mandates are not enforceable.

Some healthcare professionals and nonprofits have expressed concerns about what a ruling in favor of the challenging group could mean for American’s access to preventative health services.

“There are 150 million Americans that depend on these services and the no cost coverage mandate for them. So we’re going to see some varied, effects,” said Valerie Nelson, Manager of Advocacy and Government Affairs with Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. “But at the end of the day, what we’re going to see if the Supreme Court does not overturn the lower court’s rulings, we’re going to see shifts - cost shifts from insurers to patients.”

The federal government argued before the high court that the task force is constitutional because its can be fired by the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Justice Samuel Alito seemed skeptical of the government’s argument.

“Still, if the Task Force rates something A or B, then that’s it. And you try to get -- and -- and even if the are removable at will, the only way you can get around that is through a really -- some really jerry-built arguments,” he said.

Yet several of the justices also had a number of questions for the challenging group’s legal team.

“Your theory, I think, depends on us treating the task force as this massively important agency that operates with unreviewable authority,” said Justice Brett Kavanaugh. “Normally before that kind of thing would happen, Congress would have provided stronger indications that this task force is enormously important in the American economy and would have treated it such. And I just don’t see indications of that.”

“The idea that we would take a statute which doesn’t set up an independent agency and declare it one strikes me is pretty inconsistent with everything that we’ve done in this area,” said Justice Elena Kagan.

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