来源：《美联社新闻》
原文刊登日期：2021年6月19日
The Supreme Court, though increasingly conservative in makeup, rejected the latest major Republican-led effort to kill the national health care law known as “Obamacare” on Thursday, preserving insurance coverage for millions of Americans.
周四，尽管在人员构成上越来越偏向保守派，最高法院否决了共和党人领导的旨在扼杀被称为“奥巴马医改”的全国医保法案的最新重大尝试，保住了数百万美国人的医保。
The justices, by a 7-2 vote, left the entire Affordable Care Act intact in ruling that Texas, other GOP-led states and two individuals had no right to bring their lawsuit in federal court. The Biden administration says 31 million people have health insurance because of the law, which also survived two earlier challenges in the Supreme Court.
大法官们以7票赞成、2票反对的结果裁定，德克萨斯州、其他共和党领导的州和两名个人无权向联邦法院提起诉讼，维持了整个《平价医疗法案》的完整性。拜登政府说，《平价医疗法案》使3100万人获得了医疗保险。这项法律也经受住了此前在最高法院的两次挑战。
The law’s major provisions include protections for people with existing health conditions, a range of no-cost preventive services, expansion of the Medicaid program that insures lower-income people and access to health insurance markets offering subsidized plans.
《平价医疗法案》的主要条款包括对已患病人群提供保险、一系列免费预防服务、扩大为低收入人群提供保险的医疗补助计划(Medicaid)，以及进入提供补贴计划的医疗保险市场。
“The Affordable Care Act remains the law of the land,” President Joe Biden, said, celebrating the ruling. Also left in place is the law’s now-toothless requirement that people have health insurance or pay a penalty. Congress rendered that provision irrelevant in 2017 when it reduced the penalty to zero.
“《平价医疗法案》仍然是美国的法律，”拜登总统庆祝这一裁决时说。该法案还保留了一项现在已经失效的要求，即人们必须拥有医疗保险，否则就要支付罚款。2017年，国会将罚款降至零，使这一条款变得无关紧要。
The elimination of the penalty had become the hook that Texas and other GOP-led states used to attack the entire law. They argued that without the mandate, a pillar of the law when it was passed, the rest of the law should fall, too.
废除这一罚款已经成为德克萨斯州和其他共和党领导的州用来攻击整个《平价医疗法案》的手段。他们认为，如果没有这项强制——《平价医疗法案》通过时的支柱——该法案的其他部分也应该被废除。
And with a Supreme Court that includes three appointees of former President Donald Trump, opponents of “Obamacare” hoped a majority of the justices would finally kill the law they have been fighting for more than a decade.
由于最高法院的三名新成员都是前总统唐纳德·特朗普任命的，“奥巴马医改”的反对者希望占多数的保守派大法官最终会扼杀这项他们抗争了十多年的法律。
But the third major attack on the law at the Supreme Court ended the way the first two did, with a majority of the court rejecting efforts to get rid of the law. Trump’s appointees — Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh — split their votes. Kavanaugh and Barrett joined the majority. Gorsuch was in dissent.
但是，对《平价医疗法案》的第三次重大攻击，最高法院以前两次的方式结束，最高法院的大多数人拒绝废除该法律。特朗普任命的大法官艾米·科尼·巴雷特、尼尔·戈萨奇和布雷特·卡瓦诺意见不一致。卡瓦诺和巴雷特加入了多数派。戈萨奇持不同意见。
Because it dismissed the case for the plaintiff’s lack of legal standing — the ability to sue — the court didn’t actually rule on whether the individual mandate is unconstitutional now that there is no penalty for giving up insurance. With the latest ruling, the Supreme Court reaffirmed that “the Affordable Care Act is here to stay,” former President Barack Obama said.
因为最高法院以原告缺乏法律地位(起诉的能力)为由驳回了这个案子，实际上并没有就个人强制医保是否违宪作出裁决，因为现在对放弃保险没有处罚。前总统奥巴马说，最高法院的最新裁决重申了“平价医疗法案将继续存在”。
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton pledged to continue the fight against “Obamacare,” which he called a “massive government takeover of health care.”
德克萨斯州司法部长肯·帕克斯顿承诺将继续反对“奥巴马医改”，他称这是“大规模的政府接管医疗保健”。
But it’s not clear what Republicans can do, said Larry Levitt, an executive vice president for the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation, which studies health care. “Democrats are in charge and they have made reinvigorating and building on the ACA a key priority,” Levitt said. “Republicans don’t seem to have much enthusiasm for continuing to try to overturn the law.”
但研究医疗保健的非营利组织凯撒家庭基金会的执行副总裁拉里·莱维特说，还不清楚共和党能做些什么。莱维特说:“民主党人在掌权，他们已经把重振和建立平价医疗法案作为一个关键的优先事项。”“共和党人似乎对继续试图推翻这项法律没有多大热情。”