On Monday, the Supreme Court is expected to be debated in the case of a private insurance company that challenges the Affordable Care Act, which requires free health care inspections, tests and examinations.
Experts say the court’s ruling, Kennedy V. Braidwood Management, can affect the patient’s approach to prevention health care throughout the United States.
Since the ACA was passed in 2010, most insurers had to provide a wide range of preventive services to patients, including cancer screening, breast angiography, statins and HIV prevention drugs for heart disease.
According to KFF, a non -party group that studies health policy issues, about 150 million people are registered with a personal health insurance plan that guarantees free preventive services. According to KFF analysis, one out of one out of about 10 million in 2019 received at least one preventive service.
Arthur Caplan, the head of the medical ethics department of NYU LANGONE MEDICAL Center in New York City, said, “This is a very important case.”
The lawsuit was filed in 2022 by Texas’s conservative Christian employer group.
They argued that the ACA rules, which require the preparation of HIV preventive pills in the employee health plan, have violated religious rights.
They also challenged the independent panel that recommended the US Prevention Service Task Force.
Last year, the 5th US Court Court was with employers, but limited the decision to eight Texas companies related to this case. The court refused to apply the ruling nationwide.
According to the BIDEN administration, the federal government appealed the case to the Supreme Court. Then the Trump administration I told the court in February To defend the requirements.
What happens if the Supreme Court specifies the rules?
The Supreme Court is expected to make a decision in June.
Laurie Sobel, Deputy Director of Women’s Health Policy, said that if the court broke down the ACA rules, the insurance company could refuse to report the prevention services recommended by the task force.
SOBEL mentioned the year when the ACA was enacted, saying, “We will go back to March 2010. She added that most insurers can include the starting age and the application of PrEPs dealing with colon cancer screen. It is lowered from the age and is recognized as saving thousands of lives.
Richard Hughes, a health care lawyer at EPSTEIN BECKER GREEN and a senior lawyer at the HIV+Hepitis Policy Research Institute, may be different for each insurance company.
Hughes mentions the services that the insurance company guarantees, and I think you will see a limit of access. You will see cost sharing applied to a specific service. It appeared as a barrier because people tend to leave the service when they pay their own burden. “
Sobel also said that it would be more difficult for people to take them to the doctor’s office and to seek preventive treatment. “If we have a personal health insurance plan now … you have the right to have no cost sharing,” she said.
Sobel is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The health minister said there is a concern about what he can do in the task force.
In the court submission, the Trump administration said, “Task Force, HHS, said,“ HHS, a typical principal, is still inferior because it is still responsible for the final decision on whether the Task Force recommendation is legally binding to the insurance issuer and group health plan.
“It is not necessary to guarantee that even a federal ruling will remain in the current way, even in the federal government.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, chronic conditions such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes are the main causes of the death and disease of the United States. no way A report was found in the US Progressive Center in 2024 The ACA rules are associated with more Americans with blood pressure, blood sugar levels and overall heart health. Other studies have shown that initial cancer diagnosis has increased.
Caplan said he hopes to measure the weight of the Kennedy case.
“It is meaningless to keep talking about making the US healthy while taking away the prevention service.”
The spokesman of the Ministry of Health and Welfare did not immediately respond to the request.
