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The administration of President Joe Biden has informed the US Supreme Court that it believes the entire ACA (Affordable Care Act) should be endorsed. It would reverse the Trump administration position in a key case pending before the justices. On Wednesday, the US Department of Justice filed a letter to notify the honorable court, it says, “The United States no longer sticks to the conclusions in the previously filed brief”. The health care case was argued a week after the election in November. It’s at least the 3^rd case in which the Biden administration has switched positions at the Supreme Court. The other 2 are cases over President Donald Trump’s push to build portions of the US-Mexico border wall and a Trump policy forcing people seeking asylum to wait in Mexico for their hearings.

Point to be noted that the Trump administration called on the justices to strike down the entire Obama-era health law under which some 23 million people get health insurance and millions more with preexisting health conditions are protected from discrimination. Now the fight is over whether a 2017 change in a provision of the law known as the individual mandate rendered it unconstitutional. The US Congress eliminated the penalty for not having health insurance. The Trump administration backed the view of Texas and other Republican-led states that if such an important part of the law is invalid, the entire law should fall with it.

The Wednesday letter from the US Department of Justice said that the now-toothless mandate remains constitutional, but that even if the court decides otherwise, the rest of the law should be left alone. That outcome seemed a likely one based on the justices’ questions and comments in November, instead of taking down the entire law. President Biden has called for empowering and strengthening the law. It is noteworthy that Biden has already reopened sign-ups for people who might have lost their jobs and the health insurance that goes with them because of the coronavirus pandemic. It is important that President Biden was the vice president in 2010 when the law was enacted.