Latest Lawsuit Against Obamacare Could End Free Preventive Healthcare for 150

One of the main vehicles for achieving all three missions was a requirement that health insurers provide preventive health care services at no cost to patients. If there were no financial barriers, backers argued, patients would be more likely to get preventive services, from colonoscopies to vaccines to heart disease screenings, which would help keep people healthier and out of the hospital and, consequently, lower health care costs.

As a result of that requirement, more than 150 million Americans now have access to scores of preventive health measures at no cost, sparing many from illness and catching diseases early for others.

Now, a federal lawsuit heard in Texas last month could upend or even eliminate the preventive care requirement in the law, known as Obamacare or the ACA. A group of patients and employers are arguing that the requirement is unconstitutional. They also contend that some preventive health measures violate protections under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 that prohibit federal and state rules from unduly burdening one’s exercise of religion.

The ACA provisions “make it impossible for these plaintiffs to purchase health insurance unless they agree to pay for preventive-care coverage that they do not want and do not need” and prevent them from buying less expensive health insurance without that coverage, they argue.

And a requirement that health plans pay for a drug that prevents HIV “forces religious employers to provide coverage for drugs that facilitate and encourage homosexual behavior, prostitution, sexual promiscuity, and intravenous drug use,” the group argues.

Neither the lawyers representing the plaintiffs in the case nor the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the defendant, responded to requests for comment.

The federal judge hearing the case, Reed O’Connor of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, in 2018 struck down the Affordable Care Act as unconstitutional, only to be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2021. Supporters of the law are worried he will decide in favor of the plaintiffs in the new case.

“This judge has shown he is not shy about abolishing the entire Affordable Care Act and issuing nationwide injunctions,” said Wayne Turner, senior attorney at the National Health Law Program, which litigates on behalf of health equity and access to health care for underserved populations. O’Connor has a history of issuing nationwide injunctions involving federal laws, including the ACA.

And ACA supporters are not confident that a ruling striking down the preventive health requirements would be overturned by the conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit or ultimately by the U.S. Supreme Court, with its majority of Republican-appointed justices.

Eliminating the preventive care mandate, many health policy analysts agree, could have far-reaching and dramatic effects, potentially causing millions of patients to put off or neglect health…