Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
First Edition: March 3, 2015
Kaiser Health News: ACA Heads Back To Supreme Court
The Affordable Care Act is headed back to the Supreme Court. At stake are millions of subsidies that help people in more than three-dozen states afford health care coverage. Mary Agnes Carey and Julie Rovner, discuss the case. (3/3)
Kaiser Health News: What’s At Stake As Health Law Lands At Supreme Court Again
It’s been a bitterly cold winter in the Blue Ridge Mountains for Julia Raye and her 13-year-old son, Charles. But despite the punishing weather, 2015 has been looking good: Raye is finally able to afford insulin and the other medications she needs to keep her diabetes under control. She’s a self-employed auditor who relies on a $400 per month government subsidy to afford the private health plan she bought on healthcare.gov, the online federal marketplace for health insurance. Before the Affordable Care Act made tax credits available to low- and moderate-income workers, Raye was uninsured. Back then, just one of her diabetes medications cost her $320. (Varney, 3/3)
Kaiser Health News: HHS Shifts Money From Cancer, Global Health To Pay For Health Insurance Exchange
In their latest attack on the Affordable Care Act, House Republicans are questioning why the Obama administration transferred money last year from the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to pay for the operation of the federal health insurance marketplace. (Galewitz, 3/3)
Politico: Obamacare Case: All Eyes On 2 Justices
The future of Obamacare again falls on the shoulders of John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy. As the Obama administration and Obamacare opponents prepare for another Supreme Court showdown Wednesday, both sides are tailoring their arguments to win over the chief justice, who cast the saving vote for the Affordable Care Act in 2012, and Kennedy, the perennial swing vote on the Supreme Court. (Haberkorn and Gerstein, 3/3)
The Wall Street Journal's Law Blog: Obamacare On Trial: A Preview Of King V. Burwell
The Supreme Court on Wednesday is set to hear arguments in King v. Burwell, the latest case tied to the health-care law. The dispute involves the validity of insurance subsidies for people in more than 30 states who use the federal exchange, HealthCare.gov. At issue is wording in the Obamacare law stipulating that tax credits are available for people who enroll “through an exchange established by the state.” The parties disagree on whether the language allows the Obama administration to offer subsidies nationwide. At stake are subsidies for more than six million Americans but also the fate of the health law itself. (Gershman, 3/2)
The Wall Street Journal: What’s At Stake In The Health-Law Case
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in King v. Burwell, a case that could change the future of the federal health law. The 2010 Affordable Care Act requires most Americans to carry health insurance or pay a penalty, prohibits insurers from rejecting customers based on their medical history and provides tax credits to help many lower-income Americans who don’t get insurance from the government or an employer to help them pay premiums for insurance plans sold through online marketplaces. ... Both sides agree that if the Supreme Court voids the credits in much of the country, the law would rapidly become unworkable. (Radnofsky, 3/2)
Los Angeles Times: Challenge To Health Law Stokes Fears
[Samantha] Allen, 30, is one of millions of Americans who have come to rely on the insurance aid in the law. Few of them will be in the courtroom Wednesday when the Supreme Court takes up a legal challenge to the subsidies, but perhaps no one has more at stake. An estimated 7 million people could lose assistance if the court backs the challengers. The lawsuit — spearheaded by conservative and libertarian activists — argues that a strict reading of the statute makes subsidies available only in the handful of states like California that established their own insurance marketplaces through the law. (Levey, 3/2)
The Washington Post's Wonkblog: Why It Would Be Hard For Obamacare To Recover From A Supreme Court Loss
Without the subsidies, the situation would quickly become pretty chaotic for insurers, who've largely benefited from the law so far. Most of the uninsured would no longer be subject to Obamacare's individual mandate requiring people to have health insurance because they wouldn't then have access to "affordable" coverage, as the Affordable Care Act defines affordability. But all of the law's other features that increase the cost of health insurance, such as guaranteed coverage regardless of preexisting conditions, would remain in place. The history of similar state-level health reform efforts that enacted these consumer protections without the mandate and financial assistance shows health insurance rates skyrocketed and healthier people dropped out of the insurance markets. (Millman, 3/2)
The Wall Street Journal: How The Supreme Court Case Could Affect The Health Law
The blockbuster case before the Supreme Court is version 2.0 of a legal battle that could cripple the Affordable Care Act overhaul of the nation’s health care system. But in important ways, the new case is different from what came before the court three years ago. The case, King v. Burwell, leaves the Constitution aside and focuses instead on interpreting small snippets of language contained in the sprawling health-care law. The justices, who will hear argument on Wednesday, are deciding the meaning of words Congress chose when authorizing the government to provide tax credits for insurance purchases by middle- and low-income individuals. The subsidies are considered a crucial pillar of the law because they make health coverage more affordable for millions of Americans. (Kendall, 3/2)
The Wall Street Journal: What The Supreme Court Challenge Means For The Health-Care Law
Kim Jones, a substitute teacher, worries she will lose her health insurance if the Supreme Court strikes down a core provision of the Affordable Care Act in her state. Lou Moshakos, the head of a restaurant company in nearby Raleigh, is also waiting for the court, but with a sense of optimism. A weakened law might remove the threat of fines if he doesn’t provide insurance for his waiters. (Armour, 3/2)
The New York Times: Lawyer Put Health Act in Peril by Pointing Out 4 Little Words
The first lawsuits challenging the Affordable Care Act were still in the early stages, but conservative lawyers were already working on a backup plan in December 2010 if the first line of attack failed. It was Thomas M. Christina, an employment benefits lawyer from Greenville, S.C., who found a new vulnerability in the sprawling law. “I noticed something peculiar about the tax credit,” he told a gathering of strategists at the American Enterprise Institute. (LIptak, 3/2)
The Associated Press: GOP: Our Plans Would Help People Losing Health Subsidies
Congressional Republicans sent a message Monday that they hope the Supreme Court and voters will hear: They have ideas to keep the country’s health care system from crumbling if the justices obliterate a bedrock feature of President Barack Obama’s heath care law. The plans — one set from three GOP House chairmen, another from three top Republican senators — were far from legislative proposals, lacked detail and left many unanswered questions. They were released in the run-up to Wednesday’s oral arguments before the Supreme Court in a case in which Republicans and conservatives are challenging federal subsidies that help millions of Americans afford health coverage under Obama’s 2010 law. (3/2)
The Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire: Three House Chairmen Look Beyond Obamacare
Leading House Republicans stopped short of endorsing a short-term extension of the health law’s tax credits if the Supreme Court voids them in much of the country. The three committee chairmen tasked with organizing the House GOP response to a decision this June said in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that they want to retain a number of the law’s provisions if the court sides with plaintiffs in a case that will be heard Wednesday and could gut the law as it stands. (Radnofsky, 3/3)
Los Angeles Times: Employees Not Benefiting From Slower Growth In Health Care Costs
American workers already struggling with stagnant wages are being saddled with higher medical bills even as employers reap the benefits of a sustained slowdown in the growth of healthcare costs, a new report indicates. While employees' insurance premiums and out-of pocket medical expenses shot up 21% from 2007 to 2013 to an average of $3,273 a year, employers' total healthcare costs rose only 14.5%. (Levey, 3/2)
The Wall Street Journal: What Are the Best Hospitals? Rankings Disagree
What makes a top hospital? Four services that publish hospital ratings for consumers strongly disagree, according to a study in the journal Health Affairs. No single hospital received high marks from all four services—U.S. News & World Report, Consumer Reports, the Leapfrog Group and Healthgrades—and only 10% of the 844 hospitals that were rated highly by one service received top marks from another, the study published Monday found. (Beck, 3/2)
The Associated Press: Quality Of Health Care Focus Of NYC Jail Oversight Hearing
New York City lawmakers are taking a hard look at the quality of health care inmates receive at the Rikers Island jail complex and whether the city should renew a $126.6 million contract with a private health provider. (3/3)
NPR: Abortion Restrictions Complicate Access For Ohio Women
Ohio may not have gotten the national attention of say, Texas, but a steady stream of abortion restrictions over the past four years has helped close nearly half the state's clinics that perform the procedure. "We are more fully booked, and I think we have a harder time squeezing patients in if they're earlier in the pregnancy," says Chrisse France, executive director of Preterm. It's one of just two clinics still operating in Cleveland, and its caseload is up 10 percent. (Ludden, 3/3)
