A case that was just decided by one of the most partisan judges in the country has the potential to make it much harder for many Americans to get health insurance that covers basic preventive care, like cancer screenings or birth control.
Five years ago, Judge Reed O’Connor attempted to repeal the entire Affordable Care Act. His decision striking down Obamacare was widely mocked, even in conservative circles — in the words of one National Review article, O’Connor’s reasoning “doesn’t even merit being called silly. It’s ridiculous” — and the decision was eventually reversed by a 7-2 vote in the Supreme Court.
Nevertheless, on Thursday, O’Connor handed down a new decision that blocks a key provision of the Affordable Care Act that requires health insurers to cover a wide range of preventive health care services — ranging from cancer screenings to obesity counseling to drugs that prevent the spread of HIV.
This Thursday decision is not a surprise. Last September, O’Connor declared a key provision of the Affordable Care Act, which empowers a body known as the US Preventive Services Task Force (PSTF) to require health insurers to cover certain treatments, to be unconstitutional. His more recent decision imposes a nationwide injunction implementing his opinion from September.
So, as of Thursday morning, health insurers are no longer required to cover many forms of preventive care — including, once again, screenings for deadly diseases such as cancer and drugs that can prevent the spread of potentially deadly viruses such as HIV.
It is highly unlikely that O’Connor will have the final word in this case, known as Braidwood Management v. Becerra. And it is possible that this case will get even worse for patients as it advances to higher courts.
One reason why is that O’Connor rejected a broader attack on two other bodies within the federal government, one of which has the power to require health insurers to cover vaccinations, and…
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