Thread by @sangerkatz

There’s a big Obamacare challenge being argued before the Supreme Court right after the election. Here’s a primer on how it might go, now that Ginsburg has died. nytimes.com/2020/09/21/ups… with @sarahkliff

A few things of note.

Several people we spoke with said that this case may not split along the usual lines. Even though Obamacare itself is a partisan issue, the underlying legal questions don't divide the court ideologically.
nytimes.com/2020/09/21/ups…

If there is no new justice in time, and the court splits 4-4, that means the case has years more litigation to go. This case is unusual for SCOTUS, because the appellate court didn't decide the case. If its ruling stands, that means the trial judge will need to start over.

If Congress wants to fix Obamacare and make the whole court moot, it can. It could impose a teeny tiny mandate penalty and the whole issue could go away. It could re-pass the rest of Obamacare with no individual mandate. It could also pass other health reform packages.

Regardless, this case is going to become a big campaign issue. Democrats had a lot of success running on pre-existing conditions in 2018, and the renewed prominence of this case provides a nice way for them to reprise that playbook. nytimes.com/2020/09/21/ups…

More on the politics of this case here: nytimes.com/2019/12/19/ups…

Of course, if the court does overturn all of Obamacare, that would be a huge deal and cause enormous disruption. We tend to use "Obamacare" to mean the coverage provisions. But there is way more stuff in that law too that will be really hard to unravel. nytimes.com/2019/07/10/ups…