WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to consider bringing back some of the Affordable Care Act’s rules for preventative care coverage that were thrown out by a lower court.
The federal government took the case to the high court after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that employers can’t be forced to cover everything through insurance, including HIV drugs and some cancer tests. The decision by the lower court hurt the program that is sometimes called “Obamacare.”
Challengers said that some requirements were bad because of religion or how they were put together.
The decision did not mean that all preventive care would be lost. A nonprofit group called KFF did a study for 2023 and found that some screenings, like mammography and cervical cancer screening, would still be covered without any out-of-pocket costs.
The group found that the ruling might not cover services and medicines like statins to prevent heart disease, lung cancer screening, HIV prevention, and medicines to lower the chance of breast cancer in women with a high risk.
For now, the rules will stay in place, except for the eight companies that sued.
The 5th Circuit, which is very conservative, said that the coverage requirements were not legal because they came from the United States Preventive Services Task Force, whose members were not chosen by the president and approved by the Senate.
The case will likely be heard by the court in the spring.
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