Friday, November 07, 2014

Follow up on the election results

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to decide whether or not the Affordable Care Act limits health insurance subsidies to enrollees in State operated health insurance marketplaces. Although the law itself is clear on this point, the IRS decided to provide the subsidies in the federal facilitated marketplaces as well. Most ACA enrollees are in those federally facilitated marketplaces. More information on this Supreme Court action can be found in this Scotusblog post.

How does this relate to the election results? The Obama Administration did not want the Supreme Court to take the case. The FEHBlog expects that the Supreme Court expected its decision to trigger Congressional action.

Congress can fix the law during the lame duck session, and it will be interesting to see whether the Republicans are willing to fix the law and what will be their quid pro quo. It strikes the FEHBlog that fixing the law in return for repeal of the medical device tax, increasing the number of hours for ACA full time employment from 30 to 35 or 40 hours, and one or two other sensible changes in the lame duck session is the most sensible course of action. We shall see.

No comments: