Court deals Obamacare a serious, possibly fatal blow
An appeals court ruling has threatened the economic viability of Obamacare and could basically destroy the law if other courts come to the same conclusion.
National Journal reports the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit made the ruling in a case called Halbig v. Sebelius.
The issue at the heart of the case is the subsidies provided by the federal government for people who purchase healthcare. Without the subsidies, the majority of Americans would be unable to afford healthcare, bringing America back to the status quo pre-Obamacare.
National Journal reports that the court ruled 2-1 that subsidies may only be paid out to individuals in states with a state-built and operated marketplace. There is also a federal marketplace that citizens can use, which the majority of Americans utilized to purchase their healthcare.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit argued that extending such subsidies to residents of the 36 states without marketplaces is a violation of the law that created Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act, according to National Journal. The court argued that the subsidies were designed as an incentive to motivate states to create their own insurance marketplaces and did not allow for the payment of subsidies to people in states without insurance exchanges.
National Journal notes this is a significant ruling because two other federal courts have tossed out lawsuits based on a similar premise. Now that a ruling on the matter has been made, the case must fully make its way through the legal system.
If the ruling is upheld on further appeal, then 7.3 million people may lose their subsidies, according to National Journal. The value of these subsidies is around $36 billion. People in Florida and Texas would suffer the most, losing out on $4.8 and $5.6 billion respectively.
The majority of these people, many of whom received insurance for the first time in their lives, may soon find themselves unable to afford healthcare once again.
