King v. Burwell Round Up
King v. Burwell, the case that challenges the administration’s illegal payments of billions of dollars of tax credits in at least 34 states without state-established exchanges, may be decided this morning or no later than June 29 (or so I learn from legal blogs).
NCPA has a list of responsible responses to King v. Burwell, that should be acceptable to both Congress and the President. Yesterday’s Health Alert described one of them. Of course, we are not the only ones. Here’s what some others have to say about it.
Let’s start with some recent polling:
Kaiser Family Foundation: Congress should act. Kaiser Family Foundation’s June poll reports that 63 percent of respondents believed that “Congress should pass a law so that people in all states can be eligible for financial help” if the Supreme Court rules for the plaintiffs. This question is framed about as gentle as it can be. Who is against “financial help”? The poll also reports that more people are opposed to Obamacare than favor it (42 percent to 39 percent).
Foundation for Government Accountability: Only 58 percent of exchange enrollees support Obamacare. This poll is of people who are actually enrolled in states using healthcare.gov, and will be directly affected by King v. Burwell. These are people who are enrolled in federal exchanges! 31 percent are opposed. And they are getting significant subsidies to enroll. They expect Congress, not states, to act if King v. Burwell stops the tax credits; and will blame Congress for Obamacare’s failure. (That invites a question: Will they blame the 2010 Congress or the 2015 Congress?)
Commonwealth Fund: 86 Percent Satisfied with Obamacare or Medicaid. The subtext of this poll is: “Keep your filthy government hands off my Obamacare/Medicaid!”
As for the consequences of a King v. Burwell decision for the plaintiffs:
Avalere Health: Beneficiaries share of premiums to jump $3,300. Which means the taxpayers’ share will drop by $3,300. Am I the only one who can figure out this arithmetic? Avalere figures 6.4 million people “could be impacted by loss of subsidies.”
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: Spending on Obamacare disenrollees would drop 35 percent. How exactly is this a problem? If you think that the one and only role of government in health care is to ensure that everyone can say he is insured, perhaps a significant reduction in spending is a bad thing. The number of uninsured next year would be 8.2 million higher if the administration loses King v. Burwell.
