The federal government must pay health insurance companies roughly $12 billion that they're owed under part of the Affordable Care Act, the Supreme Court ruled Monday in an 8-1 decision.

The big picture: The ACA's "risk corridors" program was designed to help stabilize the law's insurance markets in their early years, but the Trump administration argued that Congress had prohibited it from making the required payments. The Supreme Court disagreed, saying insurers have a right to collect the money they're owed under the program.

People losing their employer-based health insurance in the coronavirus economy would find a pretty stable Affordable Care Act market if they need it — not that the Trump administration is advertising that fact.

Why it matters: ACA plans will be an important backstop for some newly uninsured people, many of whom could likely find affordable coverage on the law's insurance marketplaces.

A record 3.3 million people filed for unemployment in one week, in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, but people didn't just lose their jobs. Many also lost the health insurance that came with the job.

Why it matters: U.S. workers, even those who feel relatively secure in their health benefits, are a pandemic away from falling into the ranks of the uninsured.

Health Care Service Corp. is suing the federal government, arguing it is owed $2 billion from the Affordable Care Act's risk corridors program, which was put in place to mitigate insurance company losses in the law's early years.

Between the lines: The timing of the lawsuit is odd. Several other health insurers have already sued the feds over unpaid risk corridors claims, which led to the Supreme Court hearing their arguments this past December. However, a spokesperson for HCSC, which owns five Blue Cross Blue Shield affiliates, said the company is "not speculating on how the SCOTUS will rule."

The Supreme Court’s next big Affordable Care Act case could be a huge political problem for President Trump.

Why it matters: The Trump administration will spend the next several months urging the court to strip away some 20 million people’s health insurance and to throw out protections for pre-existing conditions. And it may all come to a head just before Election Day.

The Supreme Court announced this morning that it will hear a major case against the Affordable Care Act, meaning the health care law's fate will be on the line in the middle of the 2020 presidential election.

Why it matters: The lawsuit — which is supported by the Trump administration — argues that the entire ACA should be struck down, including its most popular provisions, like its pre-existing conditions protections.

Covered California, the state's Affordable Care Act exchange, announced yesterday that new enrollment rose 41% in 2020 after the state reinstated the individual mandate and expanded the law's insurance subsidies.

Why it matters: If California is acting as a real-life test case for what happens when policymakers beef up the ACA, the experiment seems to be going well, at least in terms of coverage numbers.

The Trump administration violated federal law by allowing red states to impose work requirements on their Medicaid programs, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. The court said the administration had not properly justified its decision, and that it was out of step with Medicaid's statutory goals.

What's next: The most likely next step is an appeal to the Supreme Court. In the meantime, the administration has not won a single favorable ruling in lawsuits over what had once looked like one of its most significant health care policies.

President Trump claimed last night during the State of the Union that he will "always protect patients with pre-existing conditions" — a statement that's misleading at best.

Why it matters: Pre-existing conditions protections are popular, and both parties are trying to claim credit for them. But only one of the parties has a track record of defending those protections, and it's not the GOP.