“Peak Obamacare”: Will Exchanges End with a Bang or with a Whimper?
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By John R. Graham,
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear King v. Burwell, an important case about Obamacare’s subsidies (tax credits) to health insurers. Plaintiffs argue that in the 36 states with federal Obamacare exchanges, subsidies cannot be paid legally. If no tax credits can be paid, neither the individual mandate to buy health insurance nor the employer mandate to offer insurance can be enforced.
Few people would voluntarily buy health insurance from an Obamacare exchange if the health insurers on the exchanges did not receive subsidies to enroll people. The premiums would be too high otherwise. Experts expect that the Supreme Court might decide on King v. Burwell in July, in which case Obamacare will end with a bang.
Some observers, like insurance expert Robert Laszeswki, believe that a legal victory would be like shooting the puck into your own team’s net. States which lose subsidies because they do not have their own exchanges would quickly try to establish them. Republican governors would be forced to cave in to Obamacare. Indeed, the risk of starving the federal exchanges of subsidies has led to some interesting fantasizing among Obamacare supporters about how states with operating exchanges, like California, could enroll people from other states, and hang on to subsidies that way.
It is not really politically tolerable for people in 14 states (plus DC) to receive significant subsidies to purchase health insurance while people in 36 states do not. Although there will be a battle of wills between the President and the anti-Obamacare governors over solving the dilemma that the Supremes might bring about, the results of the mid-term election significantly reduce the risk that Republican governors will stampede into state exchanges. Rather, a Supreme Court defeat of federal exchanges would likely force the President to return to Congress to re-open Obamacare.
– See more at: http://healthblog.ncpa.org/peak-obamacare-will-exchanges-end-with-a-bang-or-with-a-whimper/#sthash.2uw1AA5l.dpuf
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