Supreme Court seems unlikely to do what Republicans want and strike down the Affordable Care Act

Obamacare faced its latest challenge in front of the Supreme Court today. Republicans and the White House want the court to scrap the entire law, arguing it can’t survive without the penalty for not having coverage. The justices didn’t seem very receptive to that argument today.

Chief Justice John Roberts said to the Texas solicitor general, “I think it’s hard for you to argue that Congress intended the entire act to fall if the mandate were struck down, when the same Congress that lowered the penalty to zero did not even try to repeal the rest of the act. I think frankly, they wanted the court to do that, but that’s not our job.”

With the court’s conservative majority now at six to three, a Republican victory here still isn’t completely out of the question.

But millions of people rely on Obamacare, and enrollment for coverage next year has already started. Ten million Americans have also been infected with COVID-19, and others are uninsured because they lost their jobs.