SCOTUS upholds Obamacare free preventive care coverage
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The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a challenge to a section of the Affordable Care Act that designates a federal task force to recommend which preventive services insurers must cover at no cost to patients.
Why it matters: The 6-3 decision will ensure continued access to free cancer screenings, HIV drugs and counseling for the roughly 150 million Americans with private health insurance.
- The court said that the Health and Human Services secretary can still remove members of the task force.
- Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the opinion, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson concurring.
"This is a critical win for prevention," Michael Ruppal, executive director of The AIDS Institute, said in a statement.
Context: The case stems from a 2020 lawsuit against the federal government filed by two Christian-owned companies.
- They argued that the task force recommendation requiring them to cover free HIV prevention drugs in their employer-sponsored health plans was unconstitutional because task force members are not confirmed by the Senate.
- The Trump administration defended the structure of the task force, echoing the Biden administration arguments that it's constitutionally sound because the health secretary can remove members at will and decide when insurers have to cover recommendations.
Justices agreed that task force members are accountable to the HHS secretary.
- "In short, through the power to remove and replace Task Force members at will, the Secretary can exert significant control over the Task Force—including by blocking recommendations he does not agree with," Kavanaugh wrote in the opinion.
The other side: Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch — the court's most conservative members — maintained that the task force members were not appointed in accordance with the Constitution.
What to watch: The decision gives HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. the opportunity to make big changes to the preventive service task force's membership and the services it endorses.
- He's already done something similar with the panel that advises CDC on immunization recommendations, removing all 17 of its members and replacing them with handpicked successors.
- "The potential for politicization and the rejection of scientific consensus under this administration pose an ongoing threat to the very services this ruling just preserved," Elizabeth Taylor, executive director of the National Health Law Program, said in a statement.
- Congress is also debating cuts to Medicaid, which could erode access to preventive care for millions of Americans.
Editor's note: This story has been updated with additional reporting.
