US Supreme Court expected to rule on Obamacare preventive care task force
WASHINGTON, June 27 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on Friday on the legality of a key element of the Obamacare law, formally called the Affordable Care Act, that helps guarantee that health insurers cover preventive medical care such as cancer screenings at no cost to patients.
The federal government has appealed a lower court's determination that the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which under Obamacare has a major role in choosing what services will be covered, is composed of members who were not validly appointed. Its 16 members are appointed by the U.S. secretary of health and human services without Senate confirmation.
Several individual Christian plaintiffs and two small businesses sued in federal court in Texas in 2020 to challenge the task force's structure. It was the latest in a years-long series of challenges to Democratic former President Barack Obama's signature legislative achievement to reach the Supreme Court.
Before the case was narrowed to the appointments issue, the plaintiffs had included a religious objection to being required to cover pre-exposure prophylaxis for HIV. They claimed that such drugs "facilitate and encourage homosexual behavior, prostitution, sexual promiscuity and intravenous drug use."
The U.S. government's appeal of the decision by the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals initially was filed by Democratic former President Joe Biden's administration before being taken up by Republican President Donald Trump's administration.
Public health advocates had warned that life-saving tests and treatments that have been cost-free under most insurance plans may become subject to co-pays and deductibles, deterring many Americans from obtaining them, if the justices upheld the 5th Circuit's ruling.
A key question in the case was whether the task force wields power to such an extent that its members, under the Constitution's "appointments clause," are "principal officers" who must be appointed by the president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate or "inferior officers" not subject to these requirements.
The task force is made up of medical experts who serve four-year terms on a volunteer basis. It reviews medical evidence and public feedback and issues recommendations about which preventive services would be most effective for detecting illnesses earlier or addressing ailments before a patient's condition worsens.
The task force has identified, opens new tab dozens of preventive services as having a high or moderate net benefit to patients including screenings to detect diabetes and various types of cancer, statin medications to lower the risk of heart disease and stroke, and interventions to help patients quit smoking or unhealthy alcohol use.
The 5th Circuit ruled in 2024 that the task force's structure violates the Constitution, as the plaintiffs claimed.
The justices during April 21 arguments in the case posed questions over whether the law gives the HHS secretary the appropriate level of supervision over the task force, including the power to influence its recommendations and fire members at will, or if it operates as a largely independent governmental body whose recommendations effectively have the force of law.
The Justice Department urged the justices to view the task force's members as "inferior officers."
Hashim Mooppan, a Justice Department lawyer, told the justices that the HHS secretary can remove task force members at will, review their recommendations and prevent them from taking effect, and can require the task force to obtain his approval before it issues any recommendations.
The plaintiffs contended that the task force's lack of supervision and insulation from removal makes its members "principal officers."
The 5th Circuit's ruling also rejected the government's request to remove certain offending words from the Obamacare provision at issue - a process called severing - in order to make that part of the law conform to the Constitution.
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Daily Mail
20 minutes ago
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an hour ago
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They often hang out at Janith's townhome, where Jacque has another bedroom decorated with her own artwork and quilts Janith sewed for her. Jacque loves playing with Janith's dog, watching sports on television and looking up things on her iPad. Janith marvels at Jacque's sense of humor, gratefulness, curiosity and affectionate nature despite all she's endured. Jacque is generous with kisses and often signs 'double I love yous' to family, friends and new people she meets. 'When you live through so much pain and so much difficulty and so much challenge, sometimes I think: Well, she doesn't know any different,' Janith said. Given what her family has been through, Janith believes younger people are being selfish if they choose not to get their children the MMR shot against measles, mumps and rubella. 'It's more than frustrating. I mean, I get angry inside,' she said. 'I know what can happen, and I just don't want anybody else to go through this.' Delaying the measles vaccine can be deadly More than half a century has passed, but Patricia Tobin still vividly recalls getting home from work, opening the car door and hearing her mother scream. Inside the house, her little sister Karen lay unconscious on the bathroom floor. It was 1970, and Karen was 6. She'd contracted measles shortly after Easter. While an early vaccine was available, it wasn't required for school in Miami where they lived. Karen's doctor discussed immunizing the first grader, but their mother didn't share his sense of urgency. 'It's not that she was against it," Tobin said. "She just thought there was time.' Then came a measles outbreak. Karen – who Tobin described as a 'very endearing, sweet child' who would walk around the house singing – quickly became very sick. The afternoon she collapsed in the bathroom, Tobin, then 19, called the ambulance. Karen never regained consciousness. 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A doctor confirmed she was in the early stages of post-polio syndrome, a neuromuscular disorder that worsens over time. One morning, she tried to stand up and couldn't move her left leg. After two weeks in a rehab facility, she started painting to stay busy. Eventually, she joined arts organizations and began showing and selling her work. Art "gives me a sense of purpose,' she said. These days, she can't hold up her arms long enough to create big oil paintings at an easel. So she pulls her wheelchair up to an electric desk to paint on smaller surfaces like stones and petrified wood. The disease that changed her life twice is no longer a problem in the U.S. So many children get the vaccine — which is far more effective than earlier versions — that it doesn't just protect individuals but it prevents occasional cases that arrive in the U.S. from spreading further. ' Herd immunity " keeps everyone safe by preventing outbreaks that can sicken the vulnerable. After whooping cough struck, 'she was gone' Every night, Katie Van Tornhout rubs a plaster cast of a tiny foot, a vestige of the daughter she lost to whooping cough at just 37 days old. Callie Grace was born on Christmas Eve 2009 after Van Tornhout and her husband tried five years for a baby. She was six weeks early but healthy. 'She loved to have her feet rubbed," said the 40-year-old Lakeville, Indiana mom. "She was this perfect baby.' When Callie turned a month old, she began to cough, prompting a visit to the doctor, who didn't suspect anything serious. By the following night, Callie was doing worse. They went back. In the waiting room, she became blue and limp in Van Tornhout's arms. The medical team whisked her away and beat lightly on her back. She took a deep breath and giggled. Though the giggle was reassuring, the Van Tornhouts went to the ER, where Callie's skin turned blue again. For a while, medical treatment helped. But at one point she started squirming, and medical staff frantically tried to save her. 'Within minutes,' Van Tornhout said, 'she was gone.' Van Tornhout recalled sitting with her husband and their lifeless baby for four hours, "just talking to her, thinking about what could have been.' Callie's viewing was held on her original due date – the same day the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called to confirm she had pertussis, or whooping cough. She was too young for the Tdap vaccine against it and was exposed to someone who hadn't gotten their booster shot. Today, next to the cast of Callie's foot is an urn with her ashes and a glass curio cabinet filled with mementos like baby shoes. 'My kids to this day will still look up and say, 'Hey Callie, how are you?'' said Van Tornhout, who has four children and a stepson. 'She's part of all of us every day.' Van Tornhout now advocates for childhood immunization through the nonprofit Vaccinate Your Family. She also shares her story with people she meets, like a pregnant customer who came into the restaurant her family ran saying she didn't want to immunize her baby. She later returned with her vaccinated four-month-old. 'It's up to us as adults to protect our children – like, that's what a parent's job is,' Van Tornhout said. 'I watched my daughter die from something that was preventable … You don't want to walk in my shoes.' ____ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
