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A week after the 2020 election, Republican elected officials and the Trump administration are advancing their latest arguments to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, a long-held GOP goal that has repeatedly failed in Congress and the courts. In arguments scheduled for Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear its third major fight over the 10-year-old law, popularly known as “Obamacare.” Republican attorneys general in 18 states and the administration want the whole law to be struck down, which would threaten coverage for more than 23 million people. (Sherman, 11/10)

When the Supreme Court weighs the fate of “Obamacare,” arguments will revolve around arcane points of law like severability — whether the justices can surgically snip out part of the law and leave the rest. But what’s at stake has real-world consequences for just about every American, as well as the health care industry, a major source of jobs and tax revenues. Whether the Affordable Care Act stays, goes, or is significantly changed, will affect the way life is lived in the U.S. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 11/10)

Court watchers say a number of outcomes are possible when a decision is handed down, likely in June. The most extreme scenario would involve conservative justices striking down the entire 2010 law, a result that doctors’ groups say would threaten to throw the nation’s health care system into chaos at a time when the country could still be in the grips of the coronavirus pandemic. (Kruzel, 11/9)

Oral arguments in California v. Texas will provide valuable insight into which issues the justices are interrogating most seriously, including the perspective of newly confirmed Justice Amy Coney Barrett. It's impossible to extrapolate how the court will decide based solely on the questioning, but legal experts say the intensity with which justices scrutinize each of the following issues will offer clues. All ears during the remotely held arguments will be on Chief Justice John Roberts, who sided with liberal justices to uphold the individual mandate as a tax in the 2012 case National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, and the three new Trump appointees to the court since the last major ACA case was heard, especially Barrett and Justice Brett Kavanaugh. (Cohrs, 11/9)

KHN: Justices Bound To See ACA As ‘Indispensable,’ Says Californian Leading Defense 

When the U.S. Supreme Court hears a case Tuesday that could decide the fate of the Affordable Care Act, California will be leading the defense to uphold the federal law that touches nearly every aspect of the country’s health care system. It’s usually the federal government’s job to defend a federal law, but President Donald Trump’s administration wants this law, also known as Obamacare, to be overturned. (Young, 11/9)

President-elect Joe Biden is championing the Obama administration’s signature health law as it goes before the Supreme Court in a case that could overturn it. He will deliver a speech on the Affordable Care Act on Tuesday, the same day the high court will hear arguments on its merits. It ruled eight years ago to leave the essential components of the law known as Obamacare intact, but is now controlled 6-3 by a conservative majority after President Donald Trump’s appointment of Justice Amy Coney Barrett. (Weissert, 11/10)

The Massachusetts House, anticipating the possibility that a newly conservative Supreme Court could threaten abortion rights, plans to take up a measure this week that would remove barriers to abortion access, House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo said on Monday. Sought by reproductive rights activists for nearly two years, the proposal would allow an abortion after 24 weeks of gestation if the fetus is diagnosed with a fatal anomaly and is not expected to survive. It would also lower the age limit on abortion, requiring parental consent or a judicial order only for those younger than 16, the age of consent, rather than 18, as it stands under current law. (Ebbert, 11/9)