A Health Care Reform Blog––Bob Laszewski's review of the latest developments in federal health policy, health care reform, and marketplace activities in the health care financing business.
So, after twenty years of national public policy debate and hard-fought Congressional and Presidential approval, how does Trump conclude he can restore these protections should the Republican Supreme Court suit overturn them, with a simple executive order?
Now that it appears certain that the Republicans will approve a new Supreme Court justice in the coming weeks, there is great concern among Obamacare supporters that this could well mean the end of Obamacare.
That concern is being amplified in the hyper partisan environment in the ramp-up to the election––it makes for good scare tactics.
The Obamacare case currently before the court deals with the 2017 repeal of the law's individual mandate for people to buy health insurance coverage. In 2012, Chief Justice John Roberts cast the deciding vote in the 5-4 decision upholding Obamacare generally, and the individual mandate specifically, as valid under the Congress' taxing power. After the mandate repeal in 2017, a number of Republican state attorneys general sued, arguing that since the mandate was no longer tied to a specific tax penalty, it had lost its legal underpinning. They also argued that because the individual mandate was key to a number of the law's provisions that made it a workable system of insurance, the entire law should fall, including preexisting conditions protections.
IF the Democrats capture the White House, keep the House and take over the Senate the Biden health care outline stands a good chance of being enacted.
The Biden health care proposal directly takes on the big things that haven't worked in Obamacare.