Supreme Court Rejects Latest Challenge To Affordable Care Act

Supreme Court Rejects Latest Challenge To Affordable Care Act

The Supreme Court has rejected the latest challenge to the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, ruling that those seeking to strike down the law’s individual mandate do not have standing.


The court’s decision means that the law remains in place.


The court voted 7-2 against the challenge (read the opinion here). The justices did not get into the merits of the case, but ruled that the plaintiffs “failed to show a concrete, particularized injury fairly traceable to the defendants’ conduct in enforcing the specific statutory provision they attack as unconstitutional.”


This was the third time that the justices have considered the law, passed in 2010, and the third time that it has survived. This ruling was more significant given the 6-3 majority among the court’s conservatives. John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett joined with the three liberal members in the majority, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor. Breyer wrote the majority opinion, and Thomas wrote a concurring opinion.