Earlier in January, US President Joe Biden ended regulations imposed during the Trump administration that limited access to Obamacare subsidies for health insurance, and also lifted restrictions on access to Medicaid.

On 17 June, the US Supreme Court rejected a Republican bid backed by Donald Trump’s administration to invalidate the Obamacare healthcare law, saying that challengers had no legal standing to file the lawsuit. This is the third time the court has preserved Obamacare since its 2010 enactment.

The court upheld the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, in a 7-2 decision overseen by Justice Stephen Breyer.

“They have failed to show that they have standing to attack as unconstitutional the Act’s minimum essential coverage provision. Therefore, we reverse the Fifth Circuit’s judgment in respect to standing, vacate the judgment, and remand the case with instructions to dismiss,” Breyer wrote in the court’s opinion.

The 18 states, led by Texas, had argued that the penalty imposed on those who do not have minimum essential health insurance coverage – which was reduced to $0 back in 2017 – is unconstitutional. As such, they argued that the whole piece of legislation should be thrown out, because the penalty is not severable from the rest of the act.