Following last month’s decision by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals holding the “mandate” of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to be unconstitutional, the states defending the ACA requested the U.S. Supreme Court hear the case during its current term.

On Wednesday, December 18, 2019, a 3-judge panel of the Federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the “mandate” provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is unconstitutional. The panel sent the case back to Judge Reed O’Connor of the Federal District Court in Fort Worth Texas to “conduct a more searching inquiry” into which of the law’s many provisions could survive without the mandate.

On October 22, 2019, Chief Judge Margaret M. Sweeney held that a class of health insurers were entitled to nearly $1.6 billion from the U.S. government pursuant to a provision of the ACA. 

On September 16, 2019, a federal district court judge in the District of Columbia removed a policy of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) that lowered the amounts off-campus, hospital-based clinics can receive for treating Medicare patients.