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Health Care Refom and The Supreme Court Decision

By Paige Powell, PhD posted 06-07-2012 13:21

  
It was great to see many of you at the Annual Meeting and I believe we had a very successful Forum session. Suzanne is working on the notes from the meeting and I will send those out once they are finished.

As we're anxiously waiting on the Supreme Court decision for the Affordable Care Act, I am working on newspaper articles that will explain the decision in layman's terms. To do this, I have to create multiple drafts for multiple outcomes and I don't even have the reasoning; I'm just working on the implications. I am really struggling with this and could use any advice! What do you all think is going to happen? Overturned or not (Intrade is sitting at 65.3% right now for overturning the individual mandate). But what about severability? Are they going to strike down the entire law or just the individual mandate (if they strike it down at all)? Those are the questions that I'm pondering right now. Feel free to express your views here.

I also thought I would share with you an article that I wrote for our local paper that came out on the Sunday before the oral arguments in front of the Supreme Court. Feel free to use it or to discuss it. http://blog.al.com/birmingham-news-commentary/2012/03/viewpoints_viable_solutions_a.html

Feel free to post any resources you like as well!

Paige
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Comments

Suzanne Discenza, PhD
06-20-2012 17:08

Hi Paige,
You asked great questions here and I think we all are nervously awaiting the decision since the implications and impacts are so great for virtually all of us. I also really enjoyed reading your article. The following is a posting from Brian Colby of the Missouri Health Advocacy Alliance on "Waiting for the Supreme Court - 6 Scenarios" which I thought was very interesting and really highlights the complexities regarding ruling on the PPACA legislation:
We are all waiting with some trepidation about how the supreme court will rule. The ruling could come any day now. Some believe it will occure in the last week of June but nothing is certain. A new survey shows a majority of legal experts now believe the individual mandate will be thrown out. Experts are split on the impact of this type of ruling, an article in the NY Times explores this question here. What will happen is anybodies guess but here is six possible scenarios put forward with the help of the policy experts at MFH, some of which were outlined in a Post Dispatch article Monday.

1. Supremes uphold the whole law.

2. Supremes throw out the whole law for lack of a severability clause in the law passed by Congress.

3. Supremes decide they do not have standing as no one has been penalised for not having insurance yet or they rule the Anti-Injuntion Act applies. This could create a scenario of not having a Supreme Court ruling until 2015 or later.

4. Supremes could toss out the mandate and leave everything else intake.

5. Supremes could toss out the mandate and the market regulations that support no pre existing condition exclusions or community rating (premiums not based on health status). Either 4 or 5 will come with great market confusion and disruption.

6. They could leave everything in place but rule the Medicaid expansion is too coersive and financially harmful to states. This seems unlikely but who knows?

Anyway it goes we will deal with it and work to make sure the people of Missouri have access to quality, affordable health care.

Have a great day!


Brian Colby
Director of Outreach and Communications
Missouri Health Advocacy Alliance
206-769-3497 new cell number
bcolby@mohealthalliance.org

Any other scenarios anyone has heard?
Suzanne