Shortly after this morning's Supreme Court ruling upholding the ACA and dismissing the infamous Texas Fold'em lawsuit over a lack of standing by the plaintiffs, I joined John Aravosis and Cliff Schecter on the UnPresidented Podcast to discuss the case, the ruling and what it may mean going forward:
In late-breaking news, the Supreme Court this morning threw out a challenge to the Affordable Care Act (ACA, aka Obamacare) that many observers thought would lead to the the entire law being struck down as unconstitutional, costing 31 million Americans, myself included, their health insurance. Instead, the court threw out the lawsuit! We invited back ACA expert Charles Gaba to walk us through what happened, and what it means for the ACA going forward. The second half of the show we get into the other issues of the day.
Bottom Line: The case was basically thrown out for lack of standing, in a 7-2 decision, with Justice Breyer delivering the opinion of the court, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Kagan (of course), but also Justices Roberts, Kavanaugh, Barrett and Thomas!
Justice Alito and Gorsuch dissented.
From the opinion itself:
Held: Plaintiffs do not have standing to challenge §5000A(a)’s minimum essential coverage provision because they have not shown a past or future injury fairly traceable to defendants’ conduct enforcing the specific statutory provision they attack as unconstitutional. Pp. 4–16.
The American Rescue Plan provides new and expanded financial help that dramatically lowers health insurance premiums for people who purchase health insurance through Covered California.
More than 52,000 people in the Santa Barbara, Santa Maria and San Luis Obispo regions — including the uninsured and people currently enrolled directly through a health insurance carrier — stand to benefit from the new financial help that is now available.
In order to maximize their savings, consumers need to enroll by June 30 so they can begin saving and benefiting from the new law on July 1.
Many people will be able to get a high-quality plan for as little as $1 per month, and currently insured consumers could save hundreds of dollars per month on their coverage if they switch to Covered California.
On top of yesterday's confirmation by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid that over 1.24 million Americans have enrolled in ACA coverage via HealthCare.Gov so far during the ongoing Special Enrollment Period, I've also just been informed that Pennsylvania (one of the 15 states operating their own ACA exchange) has enrolled nearly 39,000 people during their SEP since 2/15 as well:
I've once again relaunched my project from last fall to track Medicaid enrollment (both standard and expansion alike) on a monthly basis for every state dating back to the ACA being signed into law.
For the various enrollment data, I'm using data from Medicaid.gov's Medicaid Enrollment Data Collected Through MBES reports. Unfortunately, they've only published enrollment data through December 2020. In most states I've been able to get more recent enrollment data from state websites and other sources.
2021 Marketplace Special Enrollment Period Report: February 15 – May 31, 2021
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) reports that over 1.2 million Americans have signed up for health insurance through HealthCare.gov since February 15, the start of the 2021 Marketplace Special Enrollment Period (SEP) opportunity, through May 31, with 376,000 consumers signing up for health insurance in the month of May.[1]
I've once again relaunched my project from last fall to track Medicaid enrollment (both standard and expansion alike) on a monthly basis for every state dating back to the ACA being signed into law.
For the various enrollment data, I'm using data from Medicaid.gov's Medicaid Enrollment Data Collected Through MBES reports. Unfortunately, they've only published enrollment data through December 2020. In most states I've been able to get more recent enrollment data from state websites and other sources.
I've once again relaunched my project from last fall to track Medicaid enrollment (both standard and expansion alike) on a monthly basis for every state dating back to the ACA being signed into law.
For the various enrollment data, I'm using data from Medicaid.gov's Medicaid Enrollment Data Collected Through MBES reports. Unfortunately, they've only published enrollment data through December 2020. In most states I've been able to get more recent enrollment data from state websites and other sources.
I've once again relaunched my project from last fall to track Medicaid enrollment (both standard and expansion alike) on a monthly basis for every state dating back to the ACA being signed into law.
For the various enrollment data, I'm using data from Medicaid.gov's Medicaid Enrollment Data Collected Through MBES reports. Unfortunately, they've only published enrollment data through December 2020. In most states I've been able to get more recent enrollment data from state websites and other sources, but Vermont isn't among them.
Vermont is one of only two states (the other is Massachusetts) where everyone enrolled in Medicaid via ACA expansion was already previously eligible before the law passed via state programs or federal waivers. However, those programs (and funding) have presumably long since been discontinued, so if the ACA is struck down, those enrollees would be in the same boat as those enabled specifically due to the ACA unless funding was immediately restored.
