In a brief filed June 25, Solicitor General Noel J. Fancisco argues the ACA’s tax penalty for failing to purchase medical insurance is unconstitutional; therefore, the entire ACA should be invalidated. Mr. Francisco argues that the individual mandate became unconstitutional when Congress eliminated the tax penalty in 2017.
“Nothing the 2017 Congress did demonstrates it would have intended the rest of the ACA to continue to operate in the absence of these … integral provisions,” states the brief. “The entire ACA thus must fall with the individual mandate.”
After the brief was filed, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., responded in a statement: “President Trump and the Republicans’ campaign to rip away the protections and benefits of the Affordable Care Act in the middle of the coronavirus crisis is an act of unfathomable cruelty.”
The administration’s brief was filed in Texas v. United States in support of a challenge to the ACA by a group of Republican attorneys general.
Oral arguments are scheduled for next term, and a decision in the case may not come until next year, according to The Washington Post.
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