Watch Live: Joe Biden speaks on the Affordable Care Act
Affordable Care Act #AffordableCareAct
Washington — President-elect Joe Biden is delivering remarks Tuesday on the Affordable Care Act, the landmark health care law enacted while he was vice president, after the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in a case challenging the constitutionality of a key provision of the law.
Mr. Biden’s comments, set to be delivered from Wilmington, Delaware, will focus on the “stakes for families across the country” in the legal battle before the justices and his plan to expand access to health care, his transition team said. He will be joined by Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.
The Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments by telephone conference in the case brought by a group of 18 red states and backed by the Trump administration, which argue Obamacare’s individual mandate is unconstitutional because Congress eliminated the financial penalty for individuals who fail to obtain health insurance coverage. The Republican-led states and the Justice Department also claim that if the individual mandate is struck down by the Supreme Court, the rest of Obamacare should fall with it, as the provision is intertwined with the law.
The Urban Institute, a Washington D.C.-based think tank, estimates that if the high court were to kill the health care law, an additional 21.1 million people would be uninsured in 2022.
Arguments in the case are set against the backdrop of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed the lives of more than 238,000 in the United States. The number of confirmed infections surged past 10 million Monday.
The dispute over the law also comes to the court as the nation prepares for Biden to be sworn in on January 20. Biden has vowed to expand the 2010 health care law.
Republicans have tried twice before at the Supreme Court to dismantle Obamacare, most notably in 2012 when Chief Justice John Roberts joined with the court’s liberal wing to uphold its individual mandate. Since then, the makeup of the court has changed and its conservative majority expanded to 6-3 with the additions of Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, all appointed by President Trump.
Barrett’s confirmation last month left Democrats assured the case will mean the end of Obamacare, as she replaced the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginbsurg. Before Ginsburg’s death in September, the five justices who upheld the law in 2012 — she, Roberts and Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — remained on the bench.
{“@context”:”https://schema.org”,”@type”:”VideoObject”,”thumbnailUrl”:”https://cbsnews1.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/2020/11/10/55d391d3-fedd-4346-ac3d-896de49e0d9b/gettyimages-1284773174.jpg”,”embedUrl”:”https://www.cbsnews.com/live/”,”name”:”Live stream: Joe Biden speaks on the Affordable Care Act”,”description”:”Mr. Biden’s remarks come after the Supreme Court hears arguments in a case brought by a group of Republican-led states who say Obamacare should fall.”,”contentRating”:”MPAA PG-13″,”videoQuality”:”720p”,”publication”:{“@type”:”BroadcastEvent”,”isLiveBroadcast”:true,”startDate”:”2020-11-10T18:50:00.000Z”,”endDate”:”2020-11-10T22:00:00.000Z”},”uploadDate”:”2020-11-10T18:50:00.000Z”,”contentUrl”:”https://cbsn-us-cedexis.cbsnstream.cbsnews.com/out/v1/55a8648e8f134e82a470f83d562deeca/master.m3u8″}