Supreme Court Takes on Challenge to Task Force Responsible for Preventive Care Mandates

On April 21, Supreme Court justices deliberated on the constitutionality of a federal panel responsible for mandating that insurers cover preventive medical services at no cost to patients.

In the case of Kennedy v. Braidwood Management Inc., the justices scrutinized a provision in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, allowing the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force to make binding recommendations regarding preventive medical services, including medications and screenings.

This act, commonly referred to as Obamacare, was enacted in 2010.

Task force members are appointed by the HHS secretary.

Braidwood Management, based in Texas, filed a lawsuit challenging the mandates approved by the task force, citing religious objections.

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The mandates encompass a wide array of treatments, including medications for HIV prevention and screenings for sexually transmitted diseases.

This clause stipulates that the U.S. president can appoint officers to assist him in executing his duties.

Principal officers must be chosen by the president and confirmed by the Senate, while inferior officers can be appointed by the president alone, a head of an executive department, or a court.

The Fifth Circuit determined that the mandates couldn’t stand because task force members were neither appointed by the president nor confirmed by the Senate.

The circuit court affirmed that the federal district court was right to prevent HHS from enforcing the mandates, as stated in the petition.

In their brief, they argued that the statute is of significant importance and that the Supreme Court should intervene rather than leaving the constitutionality and the appointments of the Task Force members entirely in the hands of the court of appeals.

Braidwood’s attorney, Jonathan Mitchell, asserted during the April 21 hearing that the Fifth Circuit was correct in identifying the task force members as “principal officers.”

“They cannot be inferior officers because their … preventive care coverage mandates are neither directed nor supervised by the secretary of Health and Human Services or anyone else who has been appointed as a principal officer,” he stated.

Mitchell emphasized that the Supreme Court must “strongly uphold the will of Congress as represented in its enacted laws.”

“The government’s suggested remedy would effectively alter the statute into something unrecognizable from what Congress intended,” he explained.

“It is not clear whether Congress would have approved a system where political figures, rather than an independent task force, decide which preventive care insurers must cover.”

Chief Justice John Roberts asked Mitchell whether the HHS secretary was supposed to be evaluating the specific details of the recommendations.

Mitchell responded that the secretary “clearly has the authority to do so,” but pointed out that the choice to defer to the expertise of the task force members “is irrelevant to the constitutional question.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh remarked that Braidwood’s stance regards the task force as a “massively important agency with unreviewable authority to make critical economic decisions.”

Typically, Congress would clarify the significance of such a task force, “yet I see no clear signals of that,” Kavanaugh noted.

In response, Mitchell reiterated that the statute states the task force “shall be independent and shielded from political pressure.”

“It’s hard for me to see stronger language than that,” he remarked.

Principal Deputy U.S. Solicitor General Hashim Mooppan argued that the task force members are classified as inferior officers, not principal officers.

He stated that the members are “subject to significant supervision by the secretary in making recommendations that bind the public” and that the secretary can dismiss them at will.

Mooppan claimed that the secretary holds the authority to review members’ recommendations, prevent their implementation, and direct members to rescind them.

He urged the Supreme Court to find the legislative language “unenforceable and severable,” meaning it could be struck down without invalidating the entire statute.

This is a developing story and will be updated.