The Supreme Court declared that it would assume a challenge to a part of the Low Price Health Care Law (ACA) that requires insurance companies to cover some types of preventive care at no cost, Adam Liptak reported The New York Times January 10. “The new challenge is aimed at a working group that decides what treatments are covered.”
Liptak explained that some Texas residents and two small businesses affiliated with Christians who provide health insurance for defendants to dispute how the working group had been appointed, saying that it violated the Constitution. “The plaintiffs opposed the decision of the working group to cover the medications that avoid HIV infection in some people at risk.”
The Federal District Court for the Northern District of Texas and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans agreed that the working group had too much independence.
Andrew Twinamatsiko, Zachary Baron and Sheela Ranganathan explained the background of the Braidwood Management, Inc. v. Becerra case in an article on December 23 to Health matters. “The Government is asking the Supreme Court to decide whether the structure of the United States preventive services work group (the” task group “), a group of experts recognized nationwide that recommend services that virtually all insurers Private must cover for free, it is constitutional.
Health innovation Mark Hagland reported on January 2 that the legal dispute depends on whether the members of the working group are “main officers” or “lower officers.” “The distinction is important,” Hagland explained, “because the legal argument of the plaintiffs is based on their statement that the members of the working group are” main official “whose appointments should have been confirmed by the United States Senate” .
United States (Usofcare) He announced in a news report on January 15 that urges the Supreme Court to stop efforts to eliminate free access to preventive care services. “By making people pay for the attention that was once free, eliminating these protections would inject uncertainty in our health system and would amplify the anxiety that we know that people already have about the cost of medical care,” said the CEO and Co -founder of Usofcare, Natalie Davis, said in a statement.
