Biden inherits Trump’s unique health care agenda – By Lauren Clason, Emily Kopp, Mary Ellen McIntire, and Sandhya Raman (Roll Call) / January 27 2021
A Supreme Court ruling on the 2010 health law looms
President Joe Biden’s tenure will be defined by his response to the coronavirus pandemic, an issue that stained former President Donald Trump’s term.
But that’s just part of the Trump health policy record that Biden now confronts. The new president is inheriting a unique mix of extraordinary and everyday policies at various stages of completion.
Trump’s most infamous unfulfilled health policy pledge, of course, was his lack of a comprehensive plan to replace the 2010 health care law, despite the president’s repeated promises and GOP lawmakers’ attempts to repeal it.
The Supreme Court is due to rule as early as this spring on the constitutionality of the law’s mandate to buy coverage and whether the law’s survival should hinge on keeping the mandate in place. The court appeared skeptical of Republican states’ challenge during arguments in November and Democrats may seek to make the issue moot through legislation, but an adverse verdict could throw the Biden administration into turmoil.
Such a ruling could also have cascading effects on policies that Trump hailed as personal successes, ranging from Medicaid work requirements to drug prices to transparency in hospital and physician prices.
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