AFP, Washington

President Donald Trump’s outgoing administration took aim in the US Supreme Court yesterday at razing the “Obamacare” health program his predecessor built, a move which could cancel the health insurance of 20 millions in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The high court opened arguments in the long-brewing case over the constitutionality of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, under which then-president Barack Obama’s government sought to extend health insurance to people who could not afford it.

Under ACA, poor adults have access to the Medicare program normally open only to retired people over 65; young people 26 years old or less can be covered by their parents’ insurance; and people whose preexisting medical conditions led to their being denied commercial health insurance have coverage.

Since taking office in 2017, Trump has tried to undermine the ACA. His government first eroded one key provision through legislation, the “individual mandate” which requires people who stay uninsured and refuse to sign up for the ACA to pay a penalty. Congress reduced the penalty to zero, and now, in a lawsuit filed by Texas and several other Republican-led states, they want the Supreme Court to declare the entire ACA unconstitutional, arguing it cannot stand without the individual mandate.

While Obamacare has proven popular, it stands at risk on technical legal grounds, at a Supreme Court which has turned sharply to the right since Trump apointed three justices to the court.