Whatever the Supreme Court Decides, Our Leaders Must Act to Preserve Access to Health Care Coverage

The Affordable Care Act is again on the chopping block – this time as the Supreme Court of the United States deliberates on its constitutionality. Blue Shield of California has been a vocal supporter of the Affordable Care Act (the ACA), and I enthusiastically join other healthcare leaders this week to remind everyone why the ACA is so important to the health of our nation. The numerous systemic improvements we’ve seen under the law have made the ACA part of the very fabric of American health care, and our elected officials must work together to preserve and improve the law, or risk seeing a decade of progress vanish.

If the landmark law is overturned, healthcare coverage for 20 million Americans could be in jeopardy. This is in addition to the estimated three million people who will lose healthcare coverage with the loss of their own or a family member’s job during the pandemic. We need the patient-centered protections of the ACA now more than ever. That’s the entire point of the law – to give people an affordable option if they can’t get coverage from an employer.

As a nonprofit health plan, we at Blue Shield of California are dedicated to creating a health care system that is worthy of our family and friends and sustainably affordable. For years we’ve proudly supported health policies aligned with our goal of universal access to healthcare coverage – something the Affordable Care Act brought us much closer to realizing. In California, the ACA brought affordable health coverage to an additional eight million Californians. The state has taken further strides toward universal coverage by expanding access to Medicaid (called Medi-Cal in the state) to low-income, undocumented residents and taking steps to lower drug prices.

In the coming months, the Supreme Court may decide to keep the parts of the law that work. The Court could instead rule against the ACA in its entirety and, absent any legislative intervention, send American healthcare back to the days of high uninsured rates, no affordable options for individuals and families, and no legal protections for those with pre-existing conditions. That is simply unacceptable.

No matter how the Supreme Court rules on this case, I truly believe our leaders do not want to see the country take an enormous step backward in the quest for universal access to health coverage, particularly in the middle of a once-in-a-century pandemic. We are calling on our elected officials at the state and federal levels to preserve and further the all-important gains achieved by the ACA—and ensure all Americans have affordable access to health care coverage, regardless of pre-existing condition, race/ethnicity, income, age, or any other factor. Our leaders must act in a non-partisan way to solve this issue for the good of our families, for the sake of our economy and for the health of the country we hold dear.