Decade of defeats: The Republican failure to take down ObamaCare

The law that became Barack Obama’s presidential legacy and was dubbed "Obamacare," has been the scorn of Republican lawmakers since its passage in March 2010 – but the GOP has been unable to kill it.

Despite having a GOP-controlled House and Senate during the first two years of Donald Trump’s presidency, along with overwhelming Republican support to repeal the federal statute, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has remained largely intact. 

The health insurance law survived its third major challenge over the last decade after the Supreme Court threw out the latest effort by 18 Republican-led states to kill the ACA Thursday.

In a dissenting opinion Justice Samuel Alito called the 7-2 decision to preserve the law "the third installment in our epic Affordable Care Act trilogy."

Thursday’s ruling shot down Republican attempts to argue that the ACA was no longer constitutional after the individual mandate was eradicated in 2017 – removing any penalties issued to Americans who chose not to pay for health insurance.

The decision was reached after the states failed to show they were negatively impacted by a mandate that had been rendered ineffective, the High Court said.

The ACA has seen a spike in support according to a 2021 poll, but its popularity has wildly fluctuated over the last decade.

A  Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) tracking poll released in May found that 53 percent of Americans support the ACA while 35 percent disapprove of the law — a significant jump from its 46 percent approval rating in April 2010.

By 2011 support for the healthcare law had dropped, with half of all Americans saying they viewed the ACA "unfavorably."