“Much attention has been given to the argument that without the individual purchase mandate, other parts of the health care law would become unworkable. Much less attention has been given to the fact that without the states forced to be on board with the Medicaid expansion, the law’s health exchange subsidies might be fiscally unworkable. The Supreme Court may have just set in motion of chain of events that could lead to the law’s being found as busting the budget, even under the highly favorable scoring methods used last time.”
“With Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling upholding President Obama’s landmark health-care law, debate has shifted to whether deadlines key to the law’s goal of expanding coverage to tens of millions of Americans will be pushed back. Some say states and the federal government are facing such complex technical and political realities that some deadlines need to be relaxed, including the Jan. 1, 2014, opening of online marketplaces where individuals and small businesses will be able to shop for coverage. And there may be pressure in Congress to delay some spending on the law to help reduce the federal budget deficit.”
“The Roberts court declared this threat unconstitutional, finding that Washington could use the carrot (dangling new money) but not the stick (withdrawing old money). The states, when they initially signed up for Medicaid, could not have anticipated that Congress would one day enact a law that caused Medicaid to be ‘no longer a program to care for the neediest among us, but rather an element of a comprehensive national plan to provide universal health insurance coverage,’ the Court reasoned.”
“For states, this is a clear winner – covering more individuals and saving budget dollars at the same time. For the taxpayer this is a nightmare. The taxpayer would save some money on the Medicaid expansions that would not take place (where the feds pay 90 percent of the cost) but they will pick up the full cost of the additional and generous insurance, bearing an additional $500 billion over ten years.”
“Republican governors are planning to ignore the Supreme Court’s decision Thursday to uphold Obamacare hoping that the issue will drive voters to dump President Obama in favor of Mitt Romney who has vowed to kill the Affordable Care Act.
After the decision, the Republican Governors Association said that nothing should be done by the states until after the election, a clear signal that they believe a GOP president, House and Senate will kill the health care reform pushed through by Democrats and opposed by Republicans.”
“In 1993, Augusta passed coverage laws that resemble those that ObamaCare is about to impose nationwide: Insurers could only vary premiums within narrow bands regardless of age or health status, a regulation known as community rating. Four of Maine’s five insurers in the individual market stopped offering coverage and fled, and the state entered an insurance ‘death spiral’ in which premiums don’t cover underlying medical costs. That leads to higher premiums, consumers dropping coverage as a result, and still higher premiums in turn.”
“New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie vetoed legislation on Thursday that would have created a statewide health-care exchange, as allowed under the federal Affordable Care Act. In a message accompanying the expected veto, The Republican governor said he had concerns about a pending U.S. Supreme Court Case against the federal health-care law and how its decision would impact funding for New Jersey.”
“The Alabama Legislature is trying to get ahead of the federal Affordable Care Act. The House passed a bill establishing the framework for health insurance exchanges in Alabama. But the Governor said the legislation is premature.”
“The most oppressive aspects of the ObamaCare law don’t kick in until after the 2012 election, when the president will no longer be answerable to voters… But certain voters would surely notice one highly painful part of the law before then — namely, the way it guts the popular Medicare Advantage program… But the administration’s devised a way to postpone the pain one more year, getting Obama past his last election; it plans to spend $8 billion to temporarily restore Medicare Advantage funds so that seniors in key markets don’t lose their trusted insurance program in the middle of Obama’s re-election bid.”
“Two years into the law’s implementation, conservative emissaries have contributed to impressive stats. Almost all red states are holding off on exchange legislation at least until the Supreme Court decides on the Affordable Care Act, and in most of those states, exchange-building legislation has crawled to a stop.”