The Supreme Court on Friday announced it will take up a case that imperils a core tenet of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) preventative care. This tenet requires insurance providers to cover pre-exposure prophylactics (PrEP), medications that can greatly reduce HIV transmission, as well as potentially hundreds of other preventive services, among them cancer screenings and heart statins.The case was originally brought by a group of individuals and a Texas business, Braidwood Management, who sued over the mandates because the company had moral objections to covering PrEP and screenings for sexually transmitted diseases and other treatments that they believe promote homosexual behavior. Related Donald Trump had a plan to end HIV by 2030. His re-election may kill that plan. In 2019, he announced the Ending HIV Epidemic Initiative. But the GOP seems determined to gut it entirely. Braidwood is a for-profit, closely held management organization owned bya trust with Dr. Steven F. Hotze, a religious Christian, as the sole trustee and beneficiary, according to KFF, the health policy research group. Stay connected to your community Connect with the issues and events that impact your community at home and beyond by subscribing to our newsletter. Subscribe to our Newsletter today Braidwood is represented by Gene Hamilton, a former Justice Department official in the first Trump administration, who now leads America First Legal with fellow Trump alum and Homeland Security advisor designee Stephen Miller. Also representing the plaintiffs is Jonathan Mitchell, who argued on Trumps behalf in the Colorado ballot access case before the Supreme Court last term, CNN reports.Braidwoods challenge to Obamacares preventative care provision was upheld in a succession of court decisions before its latest appearance before the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which agreed with previous rulings in favor of the plaintiffs but only blocked the provision for Braidwood. Both the Biden administration and the plaintiffs agreed that the 5th Circuits ruling opened the door for another party to sue in order to block the mandates nationwide, so the parties asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case.The case,Braidwood Management Inc. v. Becerra, rests on the assertion that as inferior officers, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which issued recommendations for preventive services like PrEP, operated outside the Constitution because its members are not approved by the Senate, thus violating the Appointments Clause. The plaintiffs also claiedm the requirement to cover PrEP violates Braidwoods religious rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a 1993 law that prohibits the government from significantly burdening a persons religious exercise.If the challengers prevail on either the constitutional or the religious claims, the governments ability to require insurance plans to cover evidence-based preventive services without cost-sharing could be limited.Other preventative care benefits among the hundreds at risk in this provision are prenatal nutritional supplements, physical therapy for older Americans to prevent falls, and lung cancer screenings. Those screenings save 10,000 to 20,000 lives a year, according to the Biden administration. PrEP is an essential tool in the arsenal to fight and eliminate HIV as a serious health threat in the U.S. and around the world. PrEP access has been credited for reducing HIV and STI transmission rates around the world. Though PrEP doesnt prevent STIs, those on the medication tend to get regular sexual health screenings, making them more likely to detect and receive medical treatment for STIs.In her petition to the Supreme Court to take up the case, U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote that the 5th Circuit ruling jeopardizes healthcare protections that have been in place for 14 years and that millions of Americans currently enjoy.This Courts review is warranted because the court of appeals has held an Act of Congress unconstitutional and its legal rationale would inflict immense practical harms, she wrote. The case should be heard, she said, because the appellate decision threatens to disrupt a key part of the ACA that provides healthcare protections for millions of Americans.A decision in the case is due by the end of the Supreme Courts term in June.Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.