US News

Supremes signal death to ObamaCare

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court’s conservative justices yesterday signaled they are poised to cut out the “heart” of ObamaCare and then put the entire 2,700-page law on the chopping block.

“My approach would say if you take the heart out of the statute, the statute is gone,” Justice Antonin Scalia said in court yesterday.

The third and final day of ObamaCare arguments began yesterday focused on the fate of the entire health-care law if the court strikes down the central mandate that all Americans buy health insurance — which is the ruling expected in June.

PHOTOS: ANTI-OBAMACARE PROTESTERS OUTSIDE THE SUPREME COURT

The main issue the justices must decide is whether the centerpiece of the law and its most controversial element, that all Americans have insurance coverage or pay a penalty, is constitutional.

Lawyers for the administration yesterday argued that revoking what’s called the individual mandate would undermine the funding mechanism for other key ObamaCare provisions, such as requiring insurers to cover people with pre-existing medical conditions and prohibiting insurers from canceling coverage for the very sick.

Insurance companies likely would be bankrupted if they were forced to enroll expensive ailing customers without the larger pool of customers created if the law forced everyone — especially healthy young adults — to buy insurance.

Imposing high costs on insurance companies without the individual mandate would be a “more extreme exercise of judicial power than striking the whole [law],” said Justice Anthony Kennedy, often the swing vote on the court.

If Kennedy sticks with Scalia and the three other conservative justices, they would nix the entire ObamaCare statute, officially known as the Affordable Care Act.

It would be a painful blow to President Obama, wiping out his biggest legislative accomplishment, with the ruling in June coming just as the presidential race heats up.

The White House put on a brave face: “The administration remains confident that the Affordable Care Act is constitutional,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters at the daily briefing.

“One of the reasons for that is because the individual-responsibility provision . . . was originally a Republican idea,” he said, referring to the individual mandate proposed by Republicans in the 1990s.

Still, Democrats were already preparing to put a positive spin on a ruling against ObamaCare.

“It will anger the Democratic base and increase turnout,” insisted Democratic political strategist Brad Bannon.

“This will be the best thing that ever happen to the Democratic Party, because health-care costs are going to escalate unbelievably . . .” spin-master James Carville told CNN. “I honestly believe this, this is not spin.”

The historic overhaul of the health-care system was supposed to expand coverage to more than 30 million previously uninsured Americans and put the brakes on skyrocketing medical costs.

But it does a lot more, such as providing added benefits for women, allowing parents to keep children on their policies until age 26 and giving tax credits to reduce health-care costs for employers, workers and early retirees.

The court’s four liberal-leaning justices — Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — signaled that they favored the government’s view.

“It’s a choice between a wrecking operation, which is what you are requesting, or a salvage job,” Ginsburg told lawyer Paul Clement, representing the 26 states that challenged ObamaCare.