Gov. Paul LePage. Loser.

Gov. Paul LePage. Loser.

The Republican governor appealed to the Supreme Court in February after the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that rolling back coverage for that age group was illegal because President Barack Obama’s health care law prohibits states from shrinking coverage levels for children until 2019. Maine has covered 19-and-20-year-olds—who are considered children in the Medicaid program—for more than two decades. LePage sought to erase coverage for young adults who earn less than about $1,500 a month or $2,600 a month, depending on whether they live alone or with their parents. In urging the justices to hear that case, the LePage administration said that the federal government can’t force Maine to keep the young adults on the rolls because the court has previously ruled that states can’t be forced to expand their Medicaid programs. But federal officials said there was no need for the justices to weigh in because there was no disagreement between the lower courts to be resolved and no other states have joined Maine's challenge to the requirement. They noted that "even Maine’s own attorney general has disavowed" the state's challenge.

The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from Gov. Paul LePage of a lower court decision that requires Maine to continue to cover young adults under Medicaid. The state had challenged the requirement in Obamacare, saying it was unconstitutionally coercive.The problem for LePage, in arguing that this case mirrored the challenge that ended national Medicaid expansion is that the cases aren't parallel, the appeals court ruled, because it wasn't requiring Maine to expand Medicaid, but to continue an existing program. As tempting as it might be to use this case as tea leaves for what the court might do in the insurance subsidies case,, there isn't really much to read into this. The court simply rejected the challenge, so we don't have any opinions from them as to why they did it. Additionally, the basis of each of these challenges is substantially different. This was a constitutional challenge, as opposed to the statutory challenge in, which is centered on the IRS's interpretation of congressional intent in the law. So you can't really extrapolate that this means the court might be less politically opposed to Obamacare this time around.