Trump and GOP Elated: Supreme Court to Hear Another ACA Appeal to Kill the Law

GOP Trying to Kill Bill for 10 Years and 70 Votes

(Dismal Failures)

If they “Kill Bill” — this Part Will Hurt Millions

The headlines a bit scary for tens of million of Americans but in sync with the GOP's “repeal and replace” Obama-care battle cry now for over 10 years and 70 failed votes.

This Story: The Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal case on the Affordable Care Act (ACA), commonly known as Obamacare, and that ruling could potentially invalidate the entire law.

Some Background: On December 15, 2018, a Texas judge ruled that the Obamacare “individual mandate” was unconstitutional. That Judge, Reed O’Connor, agreed with the plaintiffs who argued that the lack of a penalty invalidated the “individual mandate provision of the law, and if that part of the law was now invalid, then the whole law was also invalid and thus unconstitutional.”

Some 20 Democratic states and the House of Representatives have appealed the decision.

The case has now made it all the way up to the Supreme Court in the case titled: California v. Texas.

The high court has not yet scheduled oral arguments, but a decision is expected close to the end of its 2021 term (thus probably after the 2020 election has been decided).

If the conservative-majority justices (currently 5-4) find the individual mandate unconstitutional, that could mean all of the ACA is unconstitutional. 

Impact from various professional healthcare trackers:

1.  Cynthia Cox, Director for the Program on the ACA, the Kaiser Family Foundation: “There could be essentially total chaos. There’s no replacement plan that is ready to go and so essentially what would happen next is possibly over a short period of time, or possibly immediately, we would start seeing the ACA being unwound. And the immediate effect would be that literally tens of millions of people could lose coverage and also even more people could have other changes to their coverage. It’s been in place for 10 years. The entire health care system which is a fifth of our economy, is now entirely wrapped up in ACA. You can’t just hit a button and make the ACA go away. It’s completely intertwined in our health care system and it’s not obvious what happens when the ACA is overturned. It’s not like we can rewind the clock 10 years. There's a lot of consideration, both big and small, when it comes to thinking about how the law would go about being undone and the many, many ways it could affect the health care system.”

NOTE: A recent Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) survey found that 55% of Americans hold a favorable view of the ACA, its highest rating in a KFF poll in 10 years.

2. Gerald Kominski, a professor in health policy and management at UCLA Fielding School of Public Health: “What would happen is we’re going to go back to a marketplace that we had before the ACA.”

“Just roll back the clock 11 years. First of all, there are no longer subsidies for people to buy health insurance in exchanges. Exchanges go away. That it would be up to the court to determine whether or not the ruling is immediately effective or whether or not there is an opportunity. For example, most insurance enrollment takes place at the beginning of the calendar year and extends through that year. It could be that the eligibility would be allowed to continue for a year, but it’s possible that it could be effective immediately.”  

Kominski then explained why some are in favor of the mandate, saying: “The argument in favor of the individual mandate when the law was passed is that if you do away with pre-existing condition exclusions and you create subsidies, then somebody who’s relatively healthy, not using a lot of health care right now, could say: All right. Even with a subsidy, health care is expensive. It might cost me $100 a month. Why spend $100 a month? I can just wait until I get sick, sign up for insurance then, and I can’t be charged more because of a pre-existing condition. So maybe I can just take my changes and wait until I really need health insurance.”

3.  Tara Shaw, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities said: “Others may lose certain benefits currently received through employer insurance. Tens of millions more who get their coverage through employers would also lose important benefits. As they did prior to the ACA, insurers could impose annual and lifetime limits on coverage, limit the ability of young adults to stay on their parents’ health plans, re-impose cost sharing for preventive services, and more.”

4.  From the U.S. Census Bureau: The uninsured rate increased from 2017 to 2018 — the first year-to-year increase in the uninsured percentage since 2008 to 2009. In 2017, 25.6 million people were uninsured and that number increased to 27.4 million people in 2018, a 0.5% increase.

Note: Recall that a key part of Obamacare involved lowering the number of Americans without health insurance.

However, Republicans argued that the mandate was not only a form of a tax, but also a form of big government forcing citizens to purchase a product. Over time, some of the most vulnerable Americans have become increasingly reliant on the ACA.

Story continues at the site:

My 2 cents: Recall and don’t forget that the GOP has been trying to throw away the entire bill since it passed and was signed into law by President Obama back in March 2010 and they have voted more than 70 to “repeal and replace” results to date: None, Nada, Nil, Zero, Zilch, Goose Egg, and a damn one - nothing except raw hype.

How can any party work so hard to hurt so many people and yet profess to be loyal, patriotic, and a God-loving American. One word best describes that: Hypocrites.

Thanks for stopping by.