Court ruling in favor of Obamacare benefits consumers and both political parties

On a decisive 6 to 3 vote, King v Burwell, the US Supreme Court ruled that the legislation implementing Obamacare was constitutional and that the legislative intent that federally administered  insurance could be subsidized.  What this means for consumers is that 6 million subscribers through the federal system will maintain their affordable health insurance and that for everyone else, the rates would not soar.  The subscribers most affected were those who lived in the 35 states that did not set up their own health insurance exchanges through which Obamacare could have been  administered on a state basis. 

Consumers everywhere in the US, regardless of which state, will continue to benefit.
Per healthcare.gov, On average, consumers enrolled in the Marketplace are receiving $3,260 per year in taxcredits, or $272 each month. About 8 in 10 consumers could find coverage for $100 orless with tax credits through the Marketplace.

 Kaiser Health had predicted that all insurance rates would have increased eventually more than predicted otherwise if the Court did not uphold the Obamacare law. The Congressional Budget Office also predicted a hit in the long term to the deficit if the law was overturned because indeed there were cost savings built into Obamacare  to the health care system that aided the flattening of the cost curve. Costs were held down by less charity care,  greater competition, and built in preventative care.  With fewer consumers unable to pay their bills and with more consumers getting preventative care and checkups without copays, the entire system would see lower costs than if the Obamacare system were not viable.

Colorado would not have been immediately affected since Colorado was one of the states that set up the state exchange. But in the future, the lack of participation of so many in health insurance in general would have set up conditions that might have made Obamacare financially unsustainable since the whole system depended upon a large number of healthy as well as sick making the pool of insurers large enough to attract even healthy payers.  Our own state health exchange has also come under fire for administrative and financial problems and there is talk of abandoning the state exchange and moving its customers to the federal exchange if the Court ruled in favor of Obamacare.  There is now a plan B, a fallback to the federal exchange, if the state exchange is put on ice by our state legislature.  I would hope the State exchange would survive because its administration is closer to home than Washington, and the State legislature has some control over it.

Politically both Democrats and the GOP can breathe a sigh of relief.  The Obama health care legacy is secure. The GOP would not have to face 6 million hardship stories of those who had to drop insurance and feel  pressure to find an alternative to replace Obamacare.  After years of trying, they have never come up with a comparable replacement.  One of their dumbest  proposals, to remove the individual mandate (already upheld by the Court) and mandates on employers, would have eventually destroyed the system since only the sick would have subscribed, the pool would have had less healthy paying for the sicker, and the cost would have spiraled into its eventual death. Their State legislatures are also off the hook for finding some state funds to keep the subsidies going.  Most of the states not having state run exchanges are red states, so the political uproar would have been more severe in a presidential election year.

For those in the GOP decrying the SCOTUS decision, they offer some very misleading reasons:
That Obamacare caused soaring premiums (in fact premium increases have been less than before Obamacare) and the costs are going to be outrageous (in fact, Obamacare will lower the deficit over time per the CBO).  For the sources and reasons, see the independent, non partisan factcheck.org
http://www.factcheck.org/2015/06/scotus-ruling-fallout/

A version of this blog appeared in the www.skyhidailynews.com July 3, 2015

How the ACA benefits all consumers who have health care insurance from any source:
A list from the White House: https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/health_reform_checklist.pdf

 http://www.coloradohealthinstitute.org/blog/detail/the-aca-lives-and-one-chi-report-dies

http://coloradostatesman.com/content/995830-us-supreme-court-ruling-deals-another-defeat-obamacare-foes

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/06/19/facing-the-fallout-from-a-king-v-burwell-ruling/

http://acasignups.net/15/06/19/cbo-aca-repeal-federal-deficit-increase-353b-or-137b-over-next-decade-net-loss-24m-insured