"Where's The Train Wreck?"
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Actually, Congress did want Obamacare subsidies for the federal exchange, GOP aide says. "'Congress always intended for the federal exchanges to do everything the state exchanges do, one of those things being the federal subsidy,' said Chris Condeluci...who was tax counsel to the Senate Finance Committee from 2007 to 2010. 'I can say, even as a Republican, Congress always intended this, we just didn’t indicate it through legislative history because the process was so screwed up.'" Daniel Fisher in Forbes.
Political pressure to maintain subsidies won't come just from the voters. "The loss of insurance subsidies may also spell trouble for health care providers and the communities they serve. The Affordable Care Act paid for its generous subsidies in part by reducing payments it makes to hospitals. Hospitals took the deal because they calculated that all the new customers with insurance would help make up for the losses. The reduction in insured customers could mean big hits to those hospitals, many of which are major employers in their communities. The states in this category include some of the poorest in the nation." Margot Sanger-Katz in The New York Times
Another reminder of the political nature of the courts. "In rapid succession, six federal judges on two appeals courts weighed in....Their votes lined up precisely with the party of the president who appointed them. It was the latest illustration that presidents help shape their legacies by stocking the federal bench with judges whose views are more likely to align with their own....It's no accident when judges tend to vote with the interests of the political party of the president who named them, said law professor Richard Hasen of the University of California at Irvine." Associated Press.
Is Obamacare working? A majority of Americans seem to think so. CNN.
A tricky position for Republicans. " Do they end up paying a price for wanting to take away benefits Americans are getting under the law? Yesterday, we saw Republican after Republican praise the D.C. Circuit ruling (even after the the 4th Circuit ruling came out)....Does that mean they support these Americans having to pay MORE for health care? All along, Republicans have charged that the law will hurt Americans’ pocketbooks. But then how do you cheer for a court ruling that would effectively increase health costs for Americans living in states that didn’t set up their own exchanges?" Chuck Todd, Mark Murray and Carrie Dann in NBC News.
A sign of things to come? Lawsuit argues Tennessee deprived residents of Medicaid. "The changes to the state's Medicaid program, TennCare, following the implementation of the Affordable Care Act have resulted in thousands of individuals being blocked from coverage they are entitled to, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee in Nashville. And the firms involved argue it's because of politics related to the health care law....Like most red states, Tennessee has declined to participate in Medicaid expansion, but it is the first state in the country to face litigation over its Medicaid practices since the ACA went into effect." Sophie Novack in National Journal.
Meanwhile, the Obamacare exchange stayed busy even after open enrollment ended. "More than 5 million people signed up using Healthcare.gov by April 19, the end of the open-enrollment period. But perhaps more surprising is that, according to federal data released Wednesday to ProPublica, there have been nearly 1 million transactions on the exchange since then. People are allowed to sign up and switch plans after certain life events, such as job changes, moves, the birth of a baby, marriages and divorces. The volume of these transactions was a jolt even for those who have watched the rollout of the ACA most closely." Charles Ornstein in ProPublica and NPR.
How many newly insureds? Another estimate says 10 million. "Using Gallup polling and HHS data, Harvard researchers estimate that the uninsured rate declined by 5.2 percentage points in the second quarter of this year, corresponding to 10.3 million adults gaining coverage — although that could range from 7.3 to 17.2 million depending on how the data are interpreted. At least one researcher also has an HHS affiliation. The study, published Wednesday, is the latest in a recent series of surveys showing the number of uninsured dropping since Obamacare exchanges started last fall." Paige Winfield Cunningham in Politico.
Insurers returned $9B to consumers under O-Care. Ferdous Al-Faruque in The Hill.
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