Supreme Court & What the ACA Actually Does

The Supreme Court has taken four big whacks at the Affordable Care Act in as many years. But the conservative justices still don’t seem to understand how it works.

During oral arguments this week in Zubik v. Burwell — a set of seven challenges to Obamacare’s contraceptive-coverage mandate on behalf of religious nonprofits — Chief Justice John Roberts and his colleagues on the court’s conservative wing gave the impression that they don’t really grasp what the ACA’s health insurance exchanges do, or indeed how the market for health insurance itself even functions.