2A ❚ TUESDAY, MARCH 3, 2020 ❚ USA TODAY NEWS
WASHINGTON – The Supreme
Court agreed Monday to decide the
fate of the landmark Affordable Care
Act for the third time since its passage
a decade ago.
Acting at the behest of 20 states led
by California, the high court will re-
view a federal appeals court’s ruling
that the law’s central health insurance
mandate is unconstitutional.
That ruling in December from the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th
Circuit was based on Congress’ elim-
ination in 2017 of the tax penalty for
those who do not purchase insurance.
It left open a far more important ques-
tion: whether the law itself cannot
stand without the insurance require-
ment.
The Supreme Court upheld the law,
signed in 2010 by President Barack
Obama, in 2012 and 2015 by votes of
5-4 and 6-3, respectively. In both
cases, Chief Justice John Roberts sid-
ed with the court’s four liberal justices- a coalition that may save the law
again.
In January, the justices refused to
hear the new case on an expedited ba-
sis, eliminating any chance they would
hear and decide it during this year’s
presidential campaign. It is now likely
to be scheduled for oral argument in
the fall and a decision in 2021.
The court has its hands full this
term with an election-year docket that
includes major cases on abortion,
immigration, gun control, gay rights,
freedom of religion and subpoenas
seeking President Donald Trump’s tax
and financial records. Another Oba-
macare case, challenging the law’s re-
quirement that women get free cover-
age for contraceptives, will be heard in
April.
In the case granted Monday, the rul-
ing by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
5th Circuit left the law intact but facing
an uncertain future. That court sent
the case back to a federal district court
to decide if the entire law must fall
without the insurance mandate and
tax penalty.
The issue divides states led by
Democratic governors and legislatures
from those led by Republicans.
“As Texas and the Trump admini-
stration fight to disrupt our health care
system and the coverage that millions
of people rely upon, we look forward to
making our case in defense of the
ACA,” California Attorney General Xa-
vier Becerra said Monday. “American
lives depend upon it.”
But Texas Attorney General Ken
Paxton said the justices should uphold
the lower courts and declare the law
unconstitutional.
“Without the individual mandate,
the entire law becomes unsupporta-
ble,” Paxton said. “The federal govern-
ment cannot order private citizens to
purchase subpar insurance that they
don’t want, and I look forward to final-
ly settling the matter before the U.S.
Supreme Court.”
The Justice Department, claiming
the law is in no imminent danger, had
urged the justices to stand down and
let the district court do its work.
The new challenge stems from the
$1.5 trillion tax cut passed by the Re-
publican-dominated Congress in 2017,
which repealed the health care law’s
tax on people who refuse to buy insur-
ance. That tax was intended to prod
them into the health care marketplace
rather than let them seek emergency
care while uninsured.
In December 2018, federal District
Judge Reed O’Connor ruled that with-
out the tax, the law could not survive.
His ruling, which was put on hold
while it was appealed, threatened to
wipe out insurance for 20 million
people, protection for those with pre-
existing conditions, subsidies for low-
income people, Medicaid expansions
in many states, coverage for young
adults up to age 26 and more.
The appeals court panel agreed, 2-1,
that the individual mandate is uncon-
stitutional “because it can no longer be
read as a tax, and there is no other con-
stitutional provision that justifies this
exercise of congressional power,”
Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod wrote.
Affordable
Care Act
returns to
high court
Justices will review
appeals court ruling
Richard Wolf
USA TODAYBye-bye beaches?
Half of the world’s beaches could
disappear by 2100 because of severe
erosion linked to climate change, a
study published Monday suggests.
The main causes are sea-level rise
and erosion from storms, the study
says, which warned of “the near-ex-
tinction of almost half of the world’s
sandy beaches by the end of the centu-
ry.”
Beaches in the United States will be
“greatly affected,” as will shorelines in
Canada, Mexico, China and Chile. In the
U.S., beaches along the East Coast and
the Gulf Coast will experience the most
erosion, lead author Michalis
Vousdoukas said in an e-mail to USA
TODAY.
Vousdoukas, of the European
Union’s Joint Research Center in Ispra,
Italy, and other researchers used satel-
lite images to track the way beaches
have changed over the past 30 years
and simulated how global warming
might affect them in the future.
The study found that West Africa
will see some of the worst losses, where
more than 60% of sandy coastline may
be lost in countries such as The Gambia
and Guinea-Bissau.
Australia will also take a hit: When
the total length of sandy beach project-
ed to be lost is analyzed, Australia
would be hit the hardest, with more
than 7,000 miles at risk.
Beaches are valuable for recreation,
tourism and wildlife while also provid-
ing a natural barrier that protects coast-
al communities from waves and
storms.
“The projected shoreline changes
will substantially impact the shape of
the world’s coastline,” more than a third
of which is sandy beach, the authors
write.
Sea-level rise is the dominant cause
of the predicted loss of the world’s
beaches, especially in eastern North
America, Vousdoukas said.
“Sea level has been increasing at an
accelerated rate during the past 25years and will continue to do so with cli-
mate change,” the study says. “There is
a clear cause-and-effect relationship
between increasing sea levels and
shoreline retreat, pointing to increased
coastal erosion issues.”
Andres Payo, an expert on coastal
hazards and resilience at the British
Geological Survey, who wasn’t involved
in the study, said that while the study’s
methods are sound, its claims should
be treated with caution.
“There are many assumptions and
generalizations that could change the
outcome of the analysis both qualita-
tively and quantitatively,” Payo said.
The study’s authors calculate that up
to 40% of shoreline retreat could be
prevented by reducing the greenhouse
gas emissions that are driving climate
change but say large and growing pop-
ulations living along the coast will need
to be protected through other mea-
sures.
Citing the example of the Nether-
lands, which has battled the sea for
centuries and even reclaimed substan-
tial areas of low-lying land, the authors
say that “past experience has shown
that effective site-specific coastal plan-
ning can mitigate beach erosion, even-
tually resulting in a stable coastline.”
The study was published in the peer-
reviewed British journal Nature Climate
Change.
Contributing: The Associated PressStudy: Half the world’s beaches could go away
A May 21, 2008, file photo shows the
main beach at Caladesi Island State
Park, a barrier island along the Gulf of
Mexico, on Florida’s West Coast. APDoyle Rice
USA TODAY
hospitals, could force two out of busi-
ness.
Kathaleen Pittman, the longtime ad-
ministrator of Hope Medical Group for
Women in Shreveport, says, “Roe be-
comes meaningless if there is no access
to abortion.”‘Two different Americas’Access depends on where you live.
That’s the concern for abortion rights
advocates in the South and Midwest.
Twenty-five states dominate the
statute books when it comes to “TRAP
laws,” or targeted restrictions on abor-
tion providers. Court challenges are
pending in many of them, including
Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky,
Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma,
Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin.
Last year, states enacted 58 restric-
tions and 36 measures making abortion
more accessible, the Guttmacher Insti-
tute reported. While mostly “red” states
sought to block abortions after a certain
number of weeks and impose limits on
patients and providers, “blue” states
went in the other direction.
Last week, Virginia repealed dec-
ades-old restrictions, including 24-
hour waiting periods and mandatory
ultrasound tests. The Trump admini-
stration is battling California over its re-
quirement that most health plans cover
abortion services. New York, Illinois,
Washington, Oregon and Maine have
similar laws.
“What’s emerging here is what I
think of as two different Americas,”
says Amy Hagstrom Miller, founder and
CEO of Whole Woman’s Health, which
operates seven clinics in five states and
was the winning plaintiff in the Texas
case.
In that case, the court ruled 5-3 that
a law requiring that doctors have hospi-
tal admitting privileges and clinics
meet surgical center standards im-
posed hardships on women withoutWASHINGTON – An hourlong oral
argument Wednesday inside the Su-
preme Court could go a long way toward
reversing abortion rights in the USA.
Whether they revert by four years or 47
remains to be seen.
In 2016, the high court struck down
restrictions on Texas clinics and doc-
tors as an undue burden on women. The
ruling helped abortion rights advocates
beat back similar laws in other states.
A nearly identical law in neighboring
Louisiana is before the court, and the
prognosis for abortion opponents has
improved dramatically. State officials
contend the facts on the ground, as well
as the legal issues, call for a different re-
sult.
There is another reason: “It’s a differ-
ent court,” says Steven Aden, chief legal
officer at Americans United for Life,
which has fought for abortion restric-
tions for nearly five decades.
This is the court that three Republi-
can presidents built, the latest being
Donald Trump. Its newest associate
justice, Brett Kavanaugh, replaced An-
thony Kennedy, who provided the deci-
sive vote in the Texas case that looked
like a landmark in 2016. Not so much
now.
Anti-abortion forces have mounted a
frontal attack against the Supreme
Court’s precedents, starting with the
2016 decision and dating back to Roe v.
Wade in 1973, which legalized abortion
nationwide.
Even as the nation’s abortion rate
has dropped to its lowest level since Roe
was decided, the rapid-fire enactment
of state laws imposing restrictions
promises to generate more lawsuits
headed the high court’s way. Disputes
focus on the timing and type of abor-
tions, regulations on clinics and doc-
tors, requirements for patients – even
the sex, race or disability of the fetus.
“The Supreme Court could really
start to unroll abortion rights,” says
Elizabeth Nash, senior state issues
manager at the Guttmacher Institute, a
reproductive rights think tank.
That would extend a trend of abor-
tion clinic closures that has slashed the
number of independent clinics by one-
third in the past eight years, from 510 in
2012 to 344 last year, according to the
Abortion Care Network. Five states –
Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota,
South Dakota and West Virginia – each
are down to one clinic.
Louisiana, which leads the nation
with 89 abortion restrictions passed
since 1973, has three clinics left, in New
Orleans, Baton Rouge and Shreveport.
A federal district court judge deter-
mined that the law under challenge,
which mandates that abortion provid-
ers have admitting privileges at nearby
serving any medical purpose.
When the law was enacted, only six
of the state’s 44 abortion clinics met the
new requirements. A court injunction
allowed about 20 to remain open, but
even after the high court victory, most
of those that closed their doors never
reopened.
The Supreme Court’s decision in the
case made it more difficult for other
states to impose restrictions without
providing medical or scientific evi-
dence. Judges extended the court’s rea-
soning to other restrictions, such as
limits on voting rights.
In Louisiana, state legislators and
government officials argued that the
admitting privileges requirement
would not have such a severe impact.
When the justices refused last February
to let the law take effect while legal
challenges continued, Kavanaugh said
that contention was worth testing.
Chief Justice John Roberts joined the
court’s four liberal justices in blocking
the law.
“We have no reason to believe that
any clinic would close,” says Louisiana
Solicitor General Elizabeth Murrill, who
will argue the case Wednesday.
The state, backed by the Trump ad-
ministration and scores of anti-abor-
tion groups, contends the law is aimed
at improving health and safety mea-
sures at abortion clinics. “We shouldn’t
be substituting safety for access,” Mur-
rill says.
Julie Rikelman of the Center for Re-
productive Rights, who will argue the
other side Wednesday, says hospital
privileges are elusive for physicians
who provide abortions and unneces-
sary when just 1 in 400 patients needs
hospitalization.
Abortion rights advocates point out
that most of the nearly 10,000 women
seeking abortions in Louisiana annual-
ly are poor and unable to travel long dis-
tances for the overnight stays state reg-
ulations require.US Supreme Court may
restrict abortion providers
Justices to hear
arguments Wednesday
Richard Wolf
USA TODAY
Anti-abortion demonstrators such as those here, as well as abortion rights
advocates, will be outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday when the justices
hear what could be a landmark case from Louisiana. JOSHUA BOTE/USA TODAY