Source: Life Health Pro
Some health policy movers and shakers are using today’s oral arguments on the King vs. Burwell case as a chance to promote general approaches to reforming or replacing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care (PPACA).
The National Center for Policy Analysis, for example, says Congress should kill the PPACA exchanges, kill the individual and employer mandates and realign the PPACA premium subsidies – but keep the premium subsidies.
Gary Lauer, chief executive officer of eHealth Inc. (Nasdaq:EHTH), a company that was selling health insurance on the Web before selling health insurance on the Web was cool, is pulling for lawmakers to kill the mandates, keep the subsidies and promote use of private exchanges.
Some observers are weighing in what exactly PPACA drafters meant.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., says the petitioners in King vs. Burwell (Case Number 14-114), who argue that only PPACA exchanges established by states can offer PPACA premium tax credits, are wrong.
“I was there when the Affordable Care Act was being conceived, debated and written,” DeLauro said in a statement. “I say with no uncertainty: The bill’s authors meant for tax credits to be available to all eligible Americans, regardless of whether their state has its own marketplace or participates in the federal marketplace.”
Meanwhile, some other commenters have been thinking hard about how exactly a ruling against the Obama administration might affect health insurance companies and health plan enrollees in the near term.
For a sampling of their thoughts, read on.