This is a wrongful use of the USA court system. The minority attempted to carry out activist court actions to end the Affordable Care Act. The Affordable Care Act was passed into law by bicameral majority legislators in 2009. As McConnell would say, "Elections have consequences." Indeed they do, however, in the case of McConnell and his out of date Republicans in the US Senate those consequences should only apply to the decisions Republicans make. Their politics do not SUPPORT the USA Constitution and this a very good example of it.
I believe it was Chief Justice Roberts who plainly stated, he believed the court action was to impose a legislative activism on the Supreme Court. The plaintiffs wanted judges and justices to destroy a majority supported legislation passed into law within the constitutional processes outlined in the USA Constitution.
That political USE of the courts of the USA is toxic both to the Rule of Law and the politics of the country. When majorities are elected in the USA they have the right and DUTY to carry forward legislation expressing the people's business. When the opposition party attempts to remove a new law, that is Minority Decent and it has no place in a court of law, but, ONLY within the politics of the people.
The Republicans, when it comes to Obamacare/Affordable Care Act, USED it to win seats over two House and Senate elections and it worked for those two elections. It could be said that nasty attitude toward to affordable health care also allowed Trump to find majorities in states where citizens actually like the ACA. The Republicans staged innumerable attempts to end the ACA in the USA House. I lost count of the number of times. They all were political stunts so their politics were supported at the ballot box. Nothing ever came of those votes.
I might add, FOX News staged most of the political support when attacking the ACA, It was the only real message right wing people would listen to WITHOUT educating the public with EQUALITY of representation in the media. The law already existed and FOX News continually leveraged political demands regarding the ACA in the media. There was no basis for it, but, the POLITICAL TOXICITY, was the product FOX News was looking for, not to correct a real wrong. For the most part, the people of the country have come to love this 11 year old law. But, did that matter to the right wing media? No. They had to use the ACA to some kind of political advantage and the court systems was a means to say, "Republicans can defeat Obamacare." There were even cronies that provided lots and lots of money for Republicans seeking court action to win those cases. Money talks right? Well. Not this time. The Chief Justice and one other conservative judge have found the demand for them to "legislate from the bench" unconstitutional.
I might add, when one looks across the spectrum of those using Obamacare it is the people 400% higher than the poverty line. That is not the wealthy or the Middle Class, but, the class of people struggling the most in the USA to be well and make ends meet. They don't have voices of wealthy lawyers, they have their vote.
The Minority Rule that is a legitimate concern to the courts is about the individual and their rights living within the Majority Rule of the USA Constitution. This case about the ACA isn't it. Understand Warren Burger and his court and then the Individual will come alive in relation to the USA Constitution.
A Minority Rule decision does not destroy the Majority Rule in legislation, but, it allows for important exceptions.
November 10, 2020
By Adam Liptak
It was not clear whether the court would strike down a provision of the act that initially required most Americans to obtain insurance or pay a penalty, a requirement that was rendered toothless in 2017 after Congress zeroed out the penalty. But the bulk of the sprawling 2010 health care law, President Barack Obama’s defining domestic legacy, appeared likely to survive its latest encounter with the court.
Both Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh said striking down the so-called individual mandate did not require the rest of the law to be struck down as well.
“Congress left the rest of the law intact when it lowered the penalty to zero,” Chief Justice Roberts said....
