O’care Defenders Get Signal From Kavanaugh That There’s A Fifth Vote To Save The Law – By Tierney Sneed (Talking Points Memo) / Nov 10 2020
The Affordable Care Act appears poised to survive its third confrontation with the Supreme Court largely intact.
At oral arguments Tuesday in a lawsuit brought by red states and supported by the Trump administration, Obamacare’s defenders got signals that there are likely at least five votes on the conservative Court in favor of preserving the bulk of the law.
A pivotal moment came early on in the hearing, when Justice Brett Kavanaugh indicated that he was leaning towards a key pro-Obamacare argument being made in the case: that even if the court finds the challenged ACA provision unconstitutional, it can sever that provision from the law and leave the rest of the act still standing.
“I tend to agree with you that this is a very straightforward case for severability under our precedents meaning that we would excise the mandate and leave the rest of the act in place,” Kavanaugh said, as he questioned Donald Verrilli, who is representing the U.S. House of Representatives in its defense of the law.
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