By Xenia Shih Bion, California Health Care Foundation, May 18, 2020
In April, the US unemployment rate rose to 14.7%, surpassing the previous monthly peak of 10% during the Great Recession in 2009. At least 36 million Americans are now jobless — many of them are suddenly without employer-sponsored health insurance. Some may need to obtain health coverage in the individual marketplace or from Medicaid, whose eligibility requirements were greatly expanded under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). And yet, with a global pandemic that has caused more than 88,000 American deaths still raging, the ACA could be overturned by a lawsuit brought by states opposed to the law.
The US Supreme Court will hear a case challenging the health law during its next term, which begins in October. A Texas-led coalition of 18 states with Republican governors sued to overturn the ACA in 2018, and the case has been slowly making its way through the courts. If the high court rules the ACA unconstitutional, vital sources of health care coverage could be stripped away at a time when it is more critical than ever.
On May 6, House Democrats filed a brief (PDF) with the court that underscored the importance of the ACA during the coronavirus pandemic. “The nation’s current public-health emergency has made it impossible to deny that broad access to affordable health care is not just a life-or-death matter for millions of Americans, but an indispensable precondition to the social intercourse on which our security, welfare, and liberty ultimately depend,” the Democrats wrote.
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