Florida leads nation in ACA sign-ups as Supreme Court hears case

“You have to parse out what this case is really about and it really comes in three parts,” said federal judiciary expert Anthony Marcum of the R-Street Institute.

Marcum said the case comes down to: standing, constitutionality of the insurance mandate, and severability of the mandate from the law.

On the issue of standing, Marcum said the court will need to decide if the individuals in the case are in a legal position to bring the lawsuit.

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“Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh were very critical about the idea that you could not sever the individual mandate from the rest of the law,” notes Marcum, referring to Tuesday’s arguments. “Chief Justice Roberts asked, noting that if Congress wanted to end the Affordable Care Act they could have ended the Affordable Care Act, and Justice Kavanaugh mentioned that president in his view says pretty clearly that you can sever this part of the law that might be unconstitutional from the rest of the law.”