Washington (AP) – The Supreme Court seemed likely to maintain a key provision in preventive care of the affordable care law in a case heard on Monday.
The conservative judges Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, as well as the three liberals of the Court, seemed to be skeptical about the arguments according to which the Obamacare process to decide which services must be entirely covered by private insurance is unconstitutional.
The case could have large ramifications for the requirements of preventive coverage of the law for around 150 million Americans. Drugs and services that may be affected include statins to prevent heart disease, lung cancer screening, HIV prevention drugs and drugs to reduce the risk of breast cancer for high -risk women.
The complainants argued that the requirements to cover these drugs and services are unconstitutional because a board of directors of medical experts who recommended them should have been approved by the Senate. Challengers have also raised religious and procedural objections to certain requirements.
The Trump administration defended the mandate before the court, although President Donald Trump was a critic of the law. The Ministry of Justice said that the members of the board of directors did not need the approval of the Senate because they can be deleted by the Secretary of Health and Social Services.
The majority of judges seemed inclined to rally to the government. Kavanaugh said that he had not seen any indications in the law that the board of directors was designed to have the type of independent power which would require the approval of the Senate, and Barrett questioned the apparently “maximalist” interpretation of the complainant of the role of the board of directors.
“We are not just the creation of independent agencies. More often than not, we destroy independent agencies,” said judge Elena Kagan about the previous opinions of the court.
The judges Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas seemed likely to line up on the side of the complainants. And some suggested that they could send the case to the Court of Appeal of the 5th Conservative United States circuit. This would probably leave unanswered questions about the drugs and services that have remained covered.
A decision is expected at the end of June.
The case was submitted to the Supreme Court after the Court of Appeal canceled certain requirements for coverage of preventive care. He ranked on the side of Christian employers and residents of Texas who argued that they could not be forced to provide full insurance coverage for things like drugs to prevent HIV and certain cancer screening.
They were represented by well -known conservative lawyer Jonathan Mitchell, who represented Trump in front of the High Court in a dispute as to whether he could appear on the 2024 ballot.
Not all preventive care has been threatened by the decision. An analysis of 2023 prepared by the non -profit KFF revealed that certain projections, including mammography and detection of cervical cancer, would always be covered without cost.
The Court of Appeal concluded that the coverage requirements were unconstitutional because they came from an organization – the working group on the preventive services of the United States – whose members were not appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.