Democracy Dies in Darkness

Opinion How RBG’s death could trigger a devastating blow to the U.S. health-care system

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Columnist|
September 24, 2020 at 6:16 p.m. EDT
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died at 87. She became the second woman on the high court in 1993 and was a legal pioneer for gender equality. (Video: The Washington Post)

Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death last week was undoubtedly a loss for those who loved and admired her. It also may have dealt a devastating blow to the entire U.S. health-care system and nearly every American who interacts with it — young and old, Republican and Democrat, healthy and sick alike.

The week after Election Day, the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in a case seeking to strike down the Affordable Care Act. The case, filed by 20 red states and supported by the Trump administration, rests on a convoluted legal argument: When Congress reduced the penalty for not having health insurance to zero dollars, the individual mandate ceased to be an exercise of Congress’s taxing power and became unconstitutional.