The backdrop: The ACA requires all major medical insurance policies sold since March 23, 2010, and all self-funded employer health plans started since that date to cover a standard package of preventive services package without imposing deductibles, co-payments or other cost-sharing requirements on the patients.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force is one of the bodies that can recommend adding procedures to the ACA preventive services package. One of the procedures it put in is colon cancer screenings.

Exact Sciences is interested in the preventive services package because it sells the Cologuard colon cancer home screening test. Many patients use their health plans' ACA preventive services package benefits to pay for their colon cancer screening tests.

The litigation: Braidwood Management, a health care company with a self-insured health plan, and Kelley Orthodontics, an employer that uses fully insured group health insurance, teamed up with several patients to sue the head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in the U.S. District for the Northern District of Texas over the preventive services package requirements.

The plaintiffs are seeking permission to represent a class of employers and individuals who oppose part or all of the ACA preventive care coverage requirements because they believe the requirements conflict with their religious principles. The plaintiffs also contend that the process for adding procedures to the package violates the U.S. Constitution because the members of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force are not nominated by the president or confirmed by the Senate.

A district court judge ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in 2022, and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower court ruling in 2024.

The U.S. Supreme Court took up the case, Kennedy v. Braidwood Management, in January.

Related: Supreme Court takes up challenge to Affordable Care Act task force

At this point, the Trump administration appears to be defending the new secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert J. Kennedy Jr., against the suit.

"That's obviously a positive sign for the whole field of prevention," Conroy said.

What it means: If Conroy is right, most employer-sponsored health plans may continue to cover roughly the same kinds of cancer screening tests, with no patient cost-sharing or low patient cost-sharing, even if the Supreme Court rules in favor of the employer plans and individuals in the Braidwood case.

For employers, however, one question may be which of the preventive services in the current ACA package really pay for their keep. In theory, the services in the package are supposed to save money, but government analyses of the impact of the preventive services requirements tend to focus on the potential benefits of providing more access to preventive services and not on the cost of the services.

Researchers reported in the summer that screening for five types of cancer — cancers of the breast, cervix, colon, lung and prostate — cost Americans about $43 billion per year, and some experts questioned whether the health benefits or financial benefits justify that extra spending.