What does the Supreme Court ruling mean for your health care plan?
The Affordable Care Act lives on.
The Supreme Court ruling Thursday morning on a case called King v. Burwell means all qualified Americans can receive subsidies to make their insurance more affordable, regardless of where they live.
In its decision, the Supreme Court used Massachusetts as an example of a successful health insurance reform plan and said that “three reforms—insurance market regulations, a coverage mandate, and tax credits—enabled Massachusetts to drastically reduce its uninsured rate.’’
The three reforms, passed under then-Gov. Mitt Romney, were incorporated into the Affordable Care Act, which was signed by President Barack Obama in 2010. But King v. Burwell threatened to uproot the existence of the Affordable Care Act due to a disagreement about how the bill’s text should be interpreted.
The plaintiffs in the case argued that the text of the Affordable Care Act wasn’t valid, essentially because of one line. If the Supreme Court had agreed, millions of people would have lost access to health care.
Here’s why:
Obamacare gives states the option to either set up their own health care exchange or to let the federal government set up the exchange for them through HealthCare.gov.
Massachusetts, for example, has its own state-operated health care exchange, the Massachusetts Health Connector. Health care exchanges allow residents to research, compare, and buy health insurance plans, which they can pay for with subsidies if they’re eligible.
Now, for the contentious part. The plaintiffs in the King case pointed to a single line in the Affordable Care Act, which says that subsidies should only be provided “through an exchange established by the state.’’
Thirty-four states have exchanges that are federally run. The plaintiffs in King argued that the single line, taken literally, meant that none of the people who lived in states with federal exchanges were eligible for subsidies.
But the Supreme Court disagreed.
Chief Justice Roberts wrote: “Given that the text is ambiguous, we must turn to the broader structure of the Act … Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them. If at all possible, we must interpret the Act in a way that is consistent with the former, and avoids the latter.’’
The ruling wouldn’t have directly affected Massachusetts either way. Jason Lefferts, communications director for the Massachusetts Health Connector, said the ruling is just focused on the states that use Healthcare.gov.
“We’re state-based, so we’ll continue business as usual,’’ he said.
And, now, under this decision, all of America will, too.
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