November
7, 2014 The Supreme Court is taking up another Obamacare case—one that
could devastate the health care law's coverage expansion.
The justices on Friday agreed to hear oral arguments in King v.
Burwell, a lawsuit that challenges the insurance subsidies at the heart
of the Affordable Care Act. The suit argues that the subsidies—which
roughly 80 percent of Obamacare enrollees received—should only be
available in a handful of states.
If
the Supreme Court ultimately agrees with that logic, more than 4
million people—over half of all Obamacare enrollees—would lose their
financial assistance and likely their insurance ... the biggest
incentive for other people to get coverage would vanish.
If the challenge succeeds, the consequences for Obamacare would be
dramatic: Costs would skyrocket for millions of consumers, likely
causing many of them to drop their coverage. The law's central
goal—expanding health insurance to low-income Americans—would be
severely set back, and at least some of the law's new insurance markets
could become unsustainable.
"This lawsuit reflects just another partisan attempt to undermine the
Affordable Care Act and to strip millions of American families of tax
credits that Congress intended for them to have," White House press
secretary Josh Earnest said in a statement Friday.
Just the fact that the high court decided to take the case—and the
timing of that decision—is a bad sign for the administration. The
Justice Department had asked the Court to hold off on King while a
similar case works its way through the appeals process. If the Court
had gone along with that request, the administration's hand almost
certainly would have been stronger once the issue finally reached the
Supreme Court.
"The Court's decision to grant King substantially increases the odds
that the government will lose this case," wrote Nicholas Bagley, a law
professor at the University of Michigan.
[National
Journal Continued]
