The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld Obamacare in the latest GOP challenge arguing a recent change to the individual mandate made it unconstitutional.
The highest court of the land in a 7-2 vote ruled the GOP challengers, 18 red states led by Texas, did not have legal standing.
Two out of three Trump appointees, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh, sided with the majority.
Neil Gorsuch dissented.
Both Alito and Gorsuch dissented and said the court should have declared it unconstitutional.
NBC News reported:
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, remains valid, rejecting a claim by a group of conservative states that a recent change to the law made it unconstitutional.
The law’s challengers, 18 red states led by Texas, urged the court to rule that Obamacare’s requirement for nearly all Americans to obtain health insurance or pay an income tax penalty — known as the individual mandate — is unconstitutional. For that reason, they said, the entire law must be scrapped.
“The plaintiffs claim that without the penalty the act’s minimum essential coverage requirement is unconstitutional,” Breyer wrote for the court’s majority, adding, “They also argue that the minimum essential coverage requirement is not severable from the rest of the act,” meaning the entire law is invalid.
“We do not reach these questions of the act’s validity, however, for Texas and the other plaintiffs in this suit lack the standing necessary to raise them,” he wrote.
