King v. Burwell in Perspective: Only 1 Out of 5 Whose Insurance Costs Grew Because of Obamacare Got Subsidies

The Supreme Court will soon hand down its decision in King v. Burwell. That case asks the Court to decide if the statutory text of the Affordable Care Act authorizes the Treasury to pay subsidies to individuals who purchased coverage through Healthcare.gov—the federally operated health insurance exchange for states that did not establish their own exchanges.

Yet behind the legal dispute over who is eligible to receive subsidies lurks the larger policy issue of the subsidies’ function. While their stated purpose was to help more low-income individuals purchase health insurance, the subsidies also served to mask the significant health insurance premium increases that would inevitably result from the law’s new insurance benefit requirements and regulations.

For instance, if a 45-year-old received $540 annually in subsidies, he may not realize that the premium for the lowest-cost health insurance plan in his area actually had increased by $600 a year thanks to Obamacare regulations—because the government was paying most of that additional cost.

That imposition of costly new requirements on health insurance coverage was one of Obamacare’s fundamental errors. Good health care policy, by contrast, would have started by focusing on finding ways to make coverage less costly rather than just having the government pick up some or all of the extra cost.

Via: The Daily Signal

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Only Democrats Are to Blame for ObamaCare Chaos

If the Supreme Court were to decide not to allow retroactive legislating and uphold Obamacare as written, terrible things would happen to America. We might, for instance, find out what health insurance in fabricated, state-run “marketplaces” actually costs.

The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that the 37 states that have declined to set up exchanges would see an average spike of 287 percent should the King v. Burwell decision not go the Obama administration’s way. It would be 650 percent in Mississippi — an amount that only proves that exchanges have not made insurance markets more competitive or more affordable as promised. Actually, the cost of insurance in federally run exchanges is already 287 percent higher. The difference is picked up by taxpayers.

And you know who’s to blame for that, right?

Here is Vox: “What a Supreme Court ruling against Obamacare would look like, in 3 maps.”

Here is The Washington Post: “Map: Health-care premiums could spike as much as 650 percent if this Obamacare challenge succeeds.”

Now, technically, King v. Burwell isn’t a “challenge” to Obamacare. It’s a challenge to uphold Obamacare rather than allow the administration to implement the law in any manner it sees fit. There are compelling arguments on both sides, but the case is well within the purview of the U.S. Supreme Court. The coverage of the debate, though, has already been irrevocably distorted.

In the past few years, any SCOTUS decision that potentially disrupts liberal policy aims has been depicted as an unprecedented and extraordinary partisan overreach that threatens civic order and the norms of democracy. If the president is willing to berate SCOTUS for protecting the First Amendment, you can imagine what we’re in for should something unpleasant happen to the signature achievement of the new progressive era.

So SCOTUS can issue pro-same-sex marriage opinions that “challenge” over 200 years of American law and upend a traditional institution, but ending a concocted subsidy that’s only been around for a few years would, according to White House press secretary Josh Earnest, create bedlam:

“We continue to be very confident in the legal case we have to make. What’s also true is that if the Supreme Court were to throw the health care system in this country into utter chaos, there would be no easy solution for solving that problem, because it would likely require an act of Congress in order to address that situation.”

Via: The Patriot Post

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States Perplexed by White House Silence On Obamacare Contingencies

With the fate of President Barack Obama’s top legislative accomplishment hanging in the balance, state officials are increasingly concerned by the administration’s refusal to discuss contingency plans for insurance markets, should the Supreme Court later this month strike down 2010 health care law subsidies for 6.4 million low- and middle-income people.

Officials in a variety of states, including many led by Republicans, say they are panicked by the uncertainty a ruling against the government in King v. Burwell could unleash. Justices are weighing whether the health care overhaul allows federal subsidies for coverage to be offered in all states, or just in those that, as the law states, are “established by the state.” Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have created their own state-run health insurance exchanges; the others that rely on the federal Healthcare.gov website to enroll people could see aid disappear.

State officials expected the administration to be publicly tight-lipped about the prospect of a ruling against the law. But some say they are surprised that, so far, the administration does not appear to be holding private discussions about how to address potential fallout. Affected states would have to address unique technical and legal quirks associated with covering their residents, as well as political obstacles.

“Whatever the administration might be doing in terms of backup planning, they are not talking to the states about it, and groups like us are not privy to it,” said Ron Pollack, executive director of the advocacy group Families USA, which supports the law. “The administration — and I really want to emphasize this — is confident that it will prevail in court and it doesn’t want to do anything to undermine that possibility.”

Governors would face enormous pressure to promptly respond should justices rule against the existing system for distributing subsidies. Although Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. has suggested the court might carve out a grace period, health coverage for 2016 plan years must kick in on Jan. 1. State officials and health plans would have to scramble to come up with alternative coverage frameworks or risk letting people who lose subsidies become uninsured.

“For the governors, it’s a tough situation for all of them,” said Seema Verma, a consultant who advises seven states. “No one wants to see people lose coverage. ... What’s ironic is that there’s no discussion from the federal government to say, ‘Here’s our plan.’ Especially in the short-term situation, people are going to look to them to outline their plan and they have yet to do that.”

Via: Roll Call

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The Disappearance of Jonathan Gruber

No one lectures the United States Supreme Court quite like the New York Times. Their penchant for talking down to (face it) the conservative members of the court has transcended numerous personnel changes at the paper. And when it comes to the issues that define the twilight of modern liberalism, the Times does not obsess (as other, lesser news organizations might) about the distinction between news and opinion pages

A recent article by Robert Pear in the Politics section provides a priceless example. TheTimes recognizes, of course, that Obamacare represents the high water mark of statist ideology in the past 100 years of the U.S. Congress and that, should the law be forced back to Capitol Hill for repair of one sort or another, it has no chance at survival. As I have written elsewhere, the liberal cognoscenti view their task as pushing forward the great ratchet of history to lift us, the barbarians, out of chaos and onto the plateau of utopia.

Nothing is more agonizing to them than to see the ratchet slip a hard-won notch.

So the Times does what is necessary to inform the Court of how and why the correct decision in King v. Burwell, the latest challenge to Obamacare, is to preserve the law untouched.

In this case, as most everyone knows by now, the challenge to the law is actually directed at the IRS and their policy of providing subsidies to purchasers of health insurance in states where the government has decided not to set up an insurance exchange (leaving the task to the feds). As presented in Reason Magazine:

One section of the Affordable Care Act stipulates that insurance subsidies shall be provided in any exchange “established by the State.” Federal exchanges are not established by the state. Therefore, the federal government cannot subsidize policies bought on exchanges in the two-thirds of states that did not set up their own exchange. Washington has been doing just that up to now, thanks to the IRS’ contested interpretation of the law.

Via: Ricochet

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Obamacare ruling a time bomb for Democrats?

(CNN)Democrats and Republicans are sitting on the edge of their seats, waiting to see what the Supreme Court will decide in King v. Burwell, the looming decisionabout the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, as it has come to be known.

If the Supreme Court agrees with the challenge, an estimated 13 million people will lose their federal health insurance subsidies. The plaintiffs have argued that based on the literal reading of the legislation, the government is only supposed to provide citizens with subsidies in states that set up their own health care exchanges (a total of 16 states). The sentence in the law upon which their claim is based, The New York Times reported, was based on a sloppy error made during the drafting process. Regardless, the plaintiffs argue that in states where residents rely on federal subsidies (34 altogether), the law does not provide for subsidies.

Julian Zelizer

If the Supreme Court ruling takes away their subsidies, a substantial number of the citizens in those states will not be able to pay for their health care. Many younger and healthier Americans will take the risk and decide that they won't purchase insurance, a trend which would send prices skyrocketing. An ever-growing cycle would be devastating.

Via: CNN

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5 Supreme Court Cases to Watch in June

The Supreme Court's 2014-2015 term will soon reach its finale. By the end of June, when the justices depart for their summer break, the Court is expected to issue a series of blockbuster decisions, including rulings on gay marriage, death penalty drugs, and Obamacare. Here are five cases to watch as another momentous SCOTUS term reaches its peak.

Elonis v. United States

Anthony Elonis claims that he's "just an aspiring rapper" who likes to post violent lyrics and graphic first-person murder fantasies to Facebook. But after numerous Facebook postings in which Elonis wrote about killing his estranged wife, killing his boss, and killing others, including the FBI agent sent to investigate him, a federal jury found him guilty of transmitting "in interstate or foreign commerce any communications containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person of another." He was sentenced to 44 months in prison.

In Elonis v. United States the Supreme Court will decide whether those Facebook posts constituted a "true threat" of violence or whether they count as constitutionally protected speech under the First Amendment.

Glossip v. Gross

The state of Oklahoma employs a three-drug protocol when carrying out the death penalty via lethal injection. The first drug is supposed to render the prisoner totally unconscious and insensate. The second drug is a paralytic. The third drug does the killing. But what if there is a lack of medical consensus about whether or not the first drug actually renders the prisoner unconscious and insensate? What if paralyzed prisoners sometimes suffer excruciating pain in the final minutes before death? Would that lack of medical certainty about the drug's effects violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against imposing cruel and unusual punishments?

Glossip v. Gross centers on such concerns. At issue is Oklahoma's use of the drug midazolam to render prisoners unconscious during execution. According to the petitioners, midazolam "is not approved or used as a standalone anesthetic during painful surgeries, because it is inherently incapable of reliably inducing and maintaining deep, comalike unconsciousness." The Supreme Court is tasked with determining whether or not the lower court got it wrong when it allowed Oklahoma to continue using this potentially unreliable drug.

Horne v. United States Department of Agriculture

The Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment requires the government to pay just compensation when it takes private property for a public use. Yet according to a federal regulation designed to "stabilize" the raisin market, raisin farmers such as Marvin and Laura Horne are required to physically surrender a portion of their crop to federal officials each year without receiving just compensation in return. For example, in 2002-2003, the USDA demanded 30 percent of the annual raisin crop, which amounted to 89,000 tons. In return, the federal government paid nothing back to raisin farmers.

Do the USDA's actions violate the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment? The Supreme Court will decide in Horne v. USDA.

Obergefell v. Hodges

Do state legislatures have the lawful power to prohibit gay marriage? Or do state bans on gay marriage violate the 14th Amendment, which forbids the states from denying the equal protection of the laws to any person within their respective jurisdictions? In Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court confronts the possibility of legalizing gay marriage nationwide.

King v. Burwell

The question before the Supreme Court in King v. Burwell is whether the Obama administration illegally implemented the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) when the IRS allowed tax credits to issue to certain persons who bought health insurance on federally established health care exchanges. According to the text of the ACA, such tax credits should only issue in connection with purchases made via an "Exchange established by the State." According to the Obama administration, however, the phrase "established by the State" is actually a "term of art" that encompasses exchanges established by both the states and by the federal government. The legal challengers, by contrast, maintain that the statutory text is clear and that the health care law means what it says. Depending on how the Court sees it, the long-term survival of Obamacare could be at risk.

Via: Reason.com

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Four Words That Imperil Health Care Law Were All a Mistake, Writers Now Say

WASHINGTON — They are only four words in a 900-page law: “established by the state.

But it is in the ambiguity of those four words in the Affordable Care Act that opponents found a path to challenge the law, all the way to the Supreme Court.

How those words became the most contentious part of President Obama’s signature domestic accomplishment has been a mystery. Who wrote them, and why? Were they really intended, as the plaintiffs in King v. Burwell claim, to make the tax subsidies in the law available only in states that established their own health insurance marketplaces, and not in the three dozen states with federal exchanges?

The answer, from interviews with more than two dozen Democrats and Republicans involved in writing the law, is that the words were a product of shifting politics and a sloppy merging of different versions. Some described the words as “inadvertent,” “inartful” or “a drafting error.” But none supported the contention of the plaintiffs, who are from Virginia.

“I don’t ever recall any distinction between federal and state exchanges in terms of the availability of subsidies,” said Olympia J. Snowe, a former Republican senator from Maine who helped write the Finance Committee version of the bill.

Via: NYT

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