Richard H. Hughes, IV, Member of the Firm in the Health Care & Life Sciences practice, in the firm’s Washington, DC, office, was quoted in Law360 Healthcare Authority, in “Gov't Looks to High Court to Preserve Free Preventive Care,” by Theresa Schliep. (Read the full version – subscription required.)

Following is an excerpt:

The fate of a key element of the Affordable Care Act — its requirement that private insurers cover preventive healthcare, and without patient cost-sharing — might hang in the balance at the U.S. Supreme Court. …

The appeals court decision essentially absolves the plaintiffs from complying with that requirement. But absent Supreme Court action, the Fifth Circuit left open the possibility that they or other similarly situated parties can try to get a nationwide block on the cost-free requirement.

That's a scenario some healthcare experts regard with dread. More than 150 million people benefited from the ACA preventive care requirement in 2020, according to HHS.

"This is very, very substantive insurance law," said Richard H. Hughes IV of Epstein Becker Green. "If [the requirement] is knocked out, coverage will likely disintegrate.

The case, Becerra v. Braidwood Management Inc., is the latest in the yearslong conservative attack on the Affordable Care Act. …

The Biden administration's decision to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court now appears to be an attempt to both save the task force and thwart challenger efforts in the lower courts to get a nationwide block on the preventative care requirement, experts said.

It's also a bet on the Supreme Court's willingness to strike one part of the law.

"When I first saw the Fifth Circuit decision, I thought it would benefit the plaintiffs to go back to the lower court, and figured the government might have some interest in trying to get the Supreme Court to come in and apply its severability doctrine in a way the Fifth Circuit didn't," Hughes said.

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