ATLANTA – The U.S. Supreme Court Thursday denied a bid by Georgia and 17 other Republican-led states to overturn the Affordable Care Act.

In a 7-2 ruling, the justices declared the two plaintiffs in the case had no legal standing to bring the suit because they could not show they had been harmed by the law.

While the suit was aimed at a portion of the law requiring Americans to buy health insurance, a Republican-controlled Congress repealed the tax penalty enforcing that provision back in 2017. Without the penalty, the plaintiffs could not claim they had suffered economic harm because of the law, the court ruled.

Thursday’s decision marked the third time federal courts have upheld the Affordable Care Act, which then-President Barack Obama steered though a Democratic Congress in 2010.

In 2012, the Supreme Court held the ACA constitutional but removed a provision in the law requiring states to expand their Medicaid programs. The ACA survived another Republican-backed effort to scuttle it in 2019 when an appellate court upheld Congress’ decision to repeal the penalty but left the rest of the law intact.

President Joe Biden hailed the ruling as a major victory.

“It is a victory for more than 130 million Americans with pre-existing conditions and millions more who were in immediate danger of losing their health care in the midst of a once-in-a-century pandemic,” Biden said in a prepared statement.

“After more than a decade of attacks on the Affordable Care Act through the Congress and the courts, today’s decision – the third major challenge to the law that the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected – it is time move forward and keep building on this landmark law.”

During this year’s ACA open enrollment period, 517,331 Georgians signed up for health coverage, 88% of whom received financial assistance to lower their premiums or other out-of-pocket costs, according to the nonprofit Georgians for a Healthy Future.

“We are hopeful this will be the last attempt to overturn the law that has provided quality, affordable coverage to hundreds of thousands of Georgians,” said Whitney Griggs, a health policy analyst with the group.

The coalition of states that brought the suit, led by Texas, argued that Congress’ repeal of the tax penalty should render the entire law invalid.

“Our coalition felt strongly that the ACA was unconstitutional,” Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr said following the ruling. “While we are disappointed that the court declined to weigh in on the merits of the case, we will respect the court’s decision.”

Justice Stephen Breyer, one of the court’s three liberals, wrote the majority opinion. He was joined by fellow liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

Also ruling with the majority were Chief Justice John Roberts, a conservative who has sometimes sided with the liberals in significant cases, and conservative justices Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas.

The two dissenting votes came from conservative justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch.