在大流行期间，由于没有自己的替代性健康计划，特朗普政府正式呼吁美国最高法院彻底推翻平价医疗法案。
政府以一种法律简报周四晚些时候由20个共和党领导的州提交的案件，这些州希望完全废除该法律。
法官最早将在10月份听取口头辩论，也就是大选前几周。
在2017年共和党国会取消了对没有医疗保险的处罚后，两个下级联邦法院裁定反腐败局的个人授权是违宪的。最高法院先前支持这项授权，理由是这是一项税收。
下级法院也质疑没有授权的整个法律的可行性。
特朗普的副检察长诺埃尔·弗朗西斯科(Noel Francisco)在向最高法院提交的简报中写道:“个人授权不能与反腐败法的其余部分分割开来。”。"因此，整个反腐败局必须服从个人的命令."
2020年6月23日，唐纳德·特朗普总统在白宫南草坪登上海军陆战队一号前往亚利桑那州之前对记者发表了讲话，他将在那里参观尤马的边防墙建设行动，并在凤凰城会见一个保守的宣传团体。德鲁·安格雷尔/盖蒂图像公司
加州和其他19个民主党领导的州正在捍卫这项法律。
“ACA已经改变了生活，现在通过这场大流行，我们都可以看到以负担得起的价格获得更多高质量医疗保健的价值，”加州司法部长泽维尔·韦塞拉说，他正领导这场辩护。“现在不是撕掉我们最好的工具来解决我们社区中非常真实和非常致命的健康差距的时候。”
根据卫生与公众服务部的数据，2020年到目前为止，已有近50万美国人通过美国疾病控制和预防协会(ACA)注册了医疗保险计划——由于在冠状病毒大流行中失去工作和雇主保险，注册人数激增，比去年同期增长了46%。
“我们打算赢得这场比赛，”韦塞拉补充道。
特朗普总统在2019年6月美国广播公司新闻采访承诺推出一个“非凡的”新医疗保健计划，他说这将“比奥巴马医改便宜很多”他说，政府将在“大约两个月，也许更短的时间内”提交一份提案，但从未宣布任何计划。
“这是非常糟糕的医疗保健，”特朗普在5月份谈到美国反腐败局时说。"我们想做的是终止它，并提供良好的医疗保健."
前副总统乔·拜登为奥巴马医改辩护周四，在以医疗保健为重点的竞选活动中，他说在大流行期间废除ACA可能对许多最需要医疗保健的人特别有害。
“我认为这很残忍。太无情了。太无情了。这一切都是因为，在我看来，他不能忍受让奥巴马总统最伟大的成就之一——平价医疗法案——站在一边的想法，”拜登在谈到政府的诉讼时说。
拜登警告说，那些在COVID-19中幸存下来并随后出现健康问题的人可能面临特别大的风险。
“他们将生活在夹在中间的夹缝中唐纳德·特朗普他未能保护美国人民免受冠状病毒的侵害，以及他无情的将医疗保护从美国家庭手中夺走。
根据无党派的凯泽家庭基金会的数据，自2010年以来，美国反腐败局大幅减少了未参保美国人的数量，覆盖的人数比法律未生效时多了2000万。
众议院议长南希·佩洛西(Nancy Pelosi)周四晚间发表声明，称特朗普政府“在冠状病毒危机期间剥夺平价医疗法案的保护和利益”的决定“残忍得令人发指”
“特朗普政府剥夺美国人医疗保健的灾难性努力没有法律依据，也没有道德借口，”她说。
行业团体和独立医疗保健分析师表示，突然取消奥巴马医改将意味着数百万美国人的医疗保健发生高度破坏性的转变。
该基金会称，估计有5200万美国人先前就有健康问题，在大多数州，保险公司可能会拒绝根据《反腐败法》前的规定提供保险。
2020年6月25日，宾夕法尼亚州兰开斯特市兰开斯特娱乐中心，民主党总统候选人、前副总统乔·拜登在一次关于平价医疗的活动中发表讲话。拜登会见了受益于《平价医疗法案》的家庭，并对他的平价医疗计划发表了评论。约书亚·罗伯茨/盖蒂图像公司
现有的疾病保护和奥巴马医疗保险补贴目前仍然存在，随着案件的继续，但可能会有风险。
这是自巴拉克·奥巴马总统2010年签署《平价医疗法案》以来，法官们第三次考虑该法案的合宪性。首席大法官约翰·罗伯茨在2012年投下了著名的决定性一票，支持法院的自由派法官维护法律。
Amid pandemic, Trump administration asks Supreme Court to overturn Obamacare
In the midst of a pandemic and without an alternative health plan of its own, the Trump administration formally called on the U.S. Supreme Court to completely strike down theAffordable Care Act.
The administration makes the case in alegal brieffiled late Thursday in the case brought by 20 Republican-led states that want to completely invalidate the law.
The justices will hear oral arguments as soon as October, which is just weeks before the general election.
Two lower federal courts have ruled that the ACA’s individual mandate is unconstitutional after the GOP Congress in 2017 zeroed out the penalty for going without health insurance. The Supreme Court had previously upheld the mandate on the grounds that it was a tax.
The lower courts also called into question the viability of the entire law without the mandate.
“The individual mandate cannot be severed from the remainder of the ACA,” writes Trump solicitor general Noel Francisco in his brief to the Supreme Court. “The entire ACA thus must fall with the individual mandate.”
California and 19 other Democrat-led states are defending the law.
"The ACA has been life-changing and now through this pandemic, we can all see the value in having greater access to quality healthcare at affordable prices," said California attorney general Xavier Becerra who is leading the defense. "Now is not the time to rip away our best tool to address very real and very deadly health disparities in our communities."
Nearly half a million Americans have signed up for health plans through the ACA so far in 2020, according to the Department of Health and Human Services -- a surge of enrollment, up 46% from this time last year, from workers who lost their jobs and employer-based insurance coverage in the coronavirus pandemic.
"We intend to win this," Becerra added.
President Trump in a June 2019interview with ABC Newspromised to unveil a "phenomenal" new health care plan that he said would "be less expensive than Obamacare by a lot." He said the administration would be presenting a proposal “in about two months, maybe less," but no plan was ever announced.
"It’s very bad healthcare," Trump said of the ACA in May. "What we want to do is terminate it and give great healthcare."
Former Vice President Joe Bidendefended ObamacareThursday at campaign stop focused on health care, saying doing away with the ACA during a pandemic could be particularly harmful to many that need health care the most.
"I think it's cruel. It's heartless. It's callous. And it's all because, in my view, he can't abide the thought of letting stand on one of President Obama's greatest achievements, the Affordable Care Act," Biden said of the administrations' lawsuit.
Biden warned those who have survived COVID-19 and have subsequent health issues could be especially at-risk.
"They would live their lives caught in a vise betweenDonald Trump's twin legacies: his failure to protect the American people from the coronavirus and his heartless crusade to take health care protections away from American families," Biden said.
The ACA has sharply reduced the number of uninsured Americans since 2010, covering 20 million more people than if the law had not taken effect, according to the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi issued a statement late Thursday night, calling the Trump administration's decision "unfathomably cruelty" to "rip away the protections and benefits of the Affordable Care Act in the middle of the coronavirus crisis."
"There is no legal justification and no moral excuse for the Trump Administration’s disastrous efforts to take away Americans’ health care," she said.
Industry groups and independent health care analysts say abruptly wiping out Obamacare would mean a highly disruptive shift in the health care of millions of Americans.
An estimated 52 million Americans have preexisting health conditions that insurers could have denied coverage to under pre-ACA rules in most states, the foundation said.
Preexisting condition protections and Obamacare insurance subsidies remain in place, for now, as the case continues, but could be at risk.
The case marks the third time the justices will consider the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act since it was signed by President Barack Obama in 2010. Chief Justice John Roberts in 2012 famously cast the decisive vote, siding with the court's liberal justices to uphold the law.
