Since its historic enactment 10 years ago, the Affordable Care Act has helped tens of millions of people in the United States obtain access to quality affordable health care. Among other things, the ACA has prevented health insurance companies from denying coverage based on preexisting conditions, a critical safeguard as the COVID-19 pandemic roils our country, with 10 million cases reported to date. It has been vital to countless LGBTQ individuals in the United States, who are less likely than the general population to have access to health insurance and who face entrenched discrimination in access to health care.

Now, after many years of trying, Republicans have shepherded a case with dubious legal reasoning to the Supreme Court, which could invalidate this landmark legislation, without any regard for those left without the ACA’s protections, and without a plan with which to replace it. The case the Supreme Court is hearing is flawed and the Court should, as it did in 2012 and 2015, reject requests to invalidate the law. In so doing, the Court will protect its legitimacy, honor the lives saved by the law’s protections, and demonstrate once and for all that in the richest and most powerful country in the world, access to affordable health care must be attainable for all who seek it.