From the Desk of Bob McNett…..
Supreme Court opens hearings on lawsuit that may decide the fate of the Affordable Care Act.
In 2012, the Supreme Court kept the Affordable Care Act (ACA) breathing by deciding that the government was within it’s boundaries by penalizing citizens who chose not to buy health insurance. This was decided by just one vote, with Chief Justice John Roberts giving the go-ahead.
Yesterday, the Court began hearings on another case, King vs. Burwell, which will decide whether citizens of a state that use the federal exchange marketplace are eligible for a subsidy to assist them in purchasing individual health insurance.
The ACA law, as written, says that citizens are eligible for a subsidy if they apply on an exchange “set up by the states.”
Proponents of the lawsuit point out that 34 states chose not to set up their own exchange, but their residents use the federal exchange, not one set up by the states. Therefore, these states’ residents are not eligible for a subsidy.
Opponents of the lawsuit say that, even though the wording of the law is faulty in that aspect, that the true intent of the framers of the law was to include all citizens using a state-based or federally-sponsored exchange in eligibility for subsidies.
Currently, 16 states use their own, state-based exchanges, and 34 use the federally-sponsored exchange.
Yesterday, the Court seemed to divide along ideological lines, with the exceptions of Chief Justice John Roberts, who had little to say during the proceedings, and Justice Anthony Kennedy, who questioned both sides but did say that limiting access to subsidies to only the 16 states with a state-run exchange would create a “serious constitutional problem.”
The decision will be announced in June of this year.
Bob McNett The McNett Agency
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