Obama’s Week Just Got Worse: Supreme Court To Rule On ObamaCare Subsidies

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Obama’s Week Just Got Worse: Supreme Court To Rule On ObamaCare Subsidies (ZeroHedge, Nov 7, 2014):

Getting ‘shellacked’ in the Midterms, coming 2nd to Putin as the world’s most powerful person, and now, as AP reports, The Supreme Court agrees to rule on insurance subsidies in a new challenge to ObamaCare. Simply put they will judge whether subsidies for middle- and lower-income people are legal…

As AP reports,

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a new challenge to President Barack Obama’s health care law.

The justices on Friday say they will decide whether the law authorizes subsidies that help millions of low- and middle-income people afford their health insurance premiums.

A federal appeals court upheld Internal Revenue Service regulations that allow health-insurance tax credits under the Affordable Care Act for consumers in all 50 states. Opponents argue that most of the subsidies are illegal.

The long-running political and legal campaign to overturn or limit the 2010 health overhaul will be making its second appearance at the Supreme Court.

The justices upheld the heart of the law in a 5-4 decision in 2012 in which Chief Justice John Roberts provided the decisive vote.

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As Think Progress explains,

The Supreme Court announced on Friday that it would hear a lawsuit seeking to strip health care from millions of Americans.

The Affordable Care Act gives states a choice whether they will set up their own health exchange where consumers can buy health insurance or whether to allow the federal government to do so for them.

This lawsuit alleges that subsidies helping individuals buy health insurance are only available in exchanges run by a state, not by the feds.

If it succeeds, the likely result will be a “death spiral” where higher premiums cause healthy consumers to drop out of the insurance market, which will cause higher premiums, which will cause more consumers to drop their insurance.

Eventually, many states’ individual insurance markets are likely to collapse if this lawsuit prevails.

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