Up to 9.6 million people would lose their health insurance under Obamacare if the Supreme Court rules later this year that the law’s tax subsidies are not legal in the 30-plus states that use HealthCare.gov, according to a new study.
RAND Corp, a non-partisan think tank, estimated that coverage in the HealthCare.gov states would drop from an estimated 13.7 million in 2015 to 4.1 million if the Court rules against the Obama administration. The study also projected that premiums in the HealthCare.gov markets would increase by 47 percent.
The analysis puts the stakes of the latest challenge to President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement into stark perspective.
The Court will hear the King v. Burwell case in the spring with its ruling expected in June. The plaintiffs argue that the law’s language prohibits the law’s financial help from being administered in states with a federal exchange, HealthCare.gov. The challenge was for a long time dismissed as a serious interpretative stretch and baffled those who were involved in and followed the law’s drafting. But with the Supreme Court agreeing to hear it, it has become another existential threat to Obamacare.
More than 30 states are using the federal website in 2015, and more than 6.5 million people have enrolled through HealthCare.gov so far this year. Nearly 90 percent of them are receiving financial assistance.
Open enrollment lasts until Feb. 15, 2015, and, if the pattern from 2014 holds, the law will see a significant surge in sign-ups before that deadline. RAND is projecting 13.7 million people would be covered in the individual market in the 30-plus HealthCare.gov states, which provides the baseline for its estimate.
If the Court invalidates subsidies on the federal website, coverage would likely become unaffordable for most people, which is why RAND projects a 70 percent decrease. Those who continue to pay for their coverage would be more likely to be sick, which would in turn drive up premiums.
The law’s authors and supporters, as well as journalists who covered the Obamacare debate, have argued that it was always intended for subsidies to be available on state and federal exchanges. But its opponents have thus far gotten one lower court to agree with their interpretation and now the high court is taking the case.
The full RAND study is below.
SCOTUS will kick it back to congress for needless “clarification.” In exchange for the obvious language repair, the GOP Congress/Senate will want goodies:
medical device tax is gone
employer mandate is gone
80/20 is gone
more death panels
etc…
All fixed! Yay OBAMACARE has been replaced with Bohner-Care!
I admit to having a bit of a ghoulish interest in what decision comes down on this case. The matter before them is so incredibly small and mundane, and trivial to fix, that I have a hard time seeing them breaking precedent and taking the case before the lower court held its en banc ruling.
And if they are looking to expand beyond the matters in the case, that indicates a bit of a rebellion against Roberts is going on, since he already had the clearest and best opportunity to kill it and chose not to.
But they did take it, correct? so there will be a SCOTUS ruling of some sort, won’t there?
Yes they did. My point is they they did it in a very eyebrow raising method. And given that they could have just let the lower Court give its en banc ruling, which in all likelihood would have ended the suit once and for all, there is obviously an interest in doing something…and most likely something expansive and well beyond the limited issue raised in the case.
Hmmmm…SCOTUS-CARE?