The Game’s Not Over, and It May Not Even Be The Real Game

Brian Klepper

Posted 6/29/12 on Medscape Connect’s Care and Cost Blog

Like most health law watchers, I was surprised by yesterday’s decision. I’m sure that on this issue, as with everything else, zealous responses will rationalize the result and split the country down the middle.

I expected the Court to be purely partisan, but apparently Chief Justice John Roberts acknowledged the gravity of his role and saw his way clear to support the law with some constraints. Here’s the comment from SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) Blog:

Salvaging the idea that Congress did have the power to try to expand health care to virtually all Americans, the Supreme Court on Monday upheld the constitutionality of the crucial – and most controversial – feature of the Affordable Care Act. By a vote of 5-4, however, the Court did not sustain it as a command for Americans to buy insurance, but as a tax if they don’t. That is the way Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., was willing to vote for it, and his view prevailed. The other Justices split 4-4, with four wanting to uphold it as a mandate, and four opposed to it in any form.

Continue reading “The Game’s Not Over, and It May Not Even Be The Real Game” →

My Take On State Health Insurance Exchanges – Part 1

Kenneth Lin

Posted 4/12/12 on Common Sense Family Doctor

Regardless of whether or not the Supreme Court strikes down the individual mandate or the entire 2010 health reform law in June, state-based health insurance exchanges are a good idea and, if established, should benefit many working Americans who are too well-off to qualify for Medicaid but unable to otherwise afford health insurance coverage on their own. This post and two to follow over the next week are excerpts from an unpublished paper that I recently authored on this topic.

One of the key elements of the insurance coverage expansion contained in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is the establishment of health benefits exchanges operated by individual states, groups of states, or the federal government, by January 1, 2014. These exchanges will offer competitive and/or subsidized insurance options for individuals whose employers do not provide insurance, as well as offer plans to small businesses (up to 100 employees) at reasonable rates. Prior to the ACA, Massachusetts and Utah had both operated state insurance exchanges with varying degrees of success. By outlining only basic requirements for the functions of the exchanges, the ACA left many important questions regarding their design unanswered. Some states appear to be pursuing a “wait and see” strategy, hoping that the U.S. Supreme Court will strike down the ACA prior to the January 2013 deadline for showing sufficient progress toward establishing an exchange or ceding control to the federal government. Others are at various stages of the planning process; as of January 2012, 13 states had formally established their exchanges through legislation or executive orders. Maryland and California are at the vanguard of this group.

Continue reading “My Take On State Health Insurance Exchanges – Part 1” →

The Supreme Court and the Mathless Health Care Reform Debate

Eugene Steuerle

Posted 4/10/12 on The Government We Deserve

Regardless of how the Supreme Court decides the constitutionality of the individual mandate, the health care debate is now reignited. If the mandate is sustained, the Accountable Care Act enacted under President Obama still has too many kinks to remain unaltered. If it’s thrown out, a return to the unsustainable system with growing numbers of uninsured is not a solution. Yet no fix is possible as long as elected officials dodge the basic arithmetic of health care.

As for the individual mandate, ignore the constitutional briefs for the moment. Ignore also how a mandate helps address problems that arise if insurance companies must offer coverage regardless of prior conditions and people otherwise are tempted to wait until they are sick to buy it. Instead, let’s see how a mandate fits it into the broader arithmetic of paying for health care.

Continue reading “The Supreme Court and the Mathless Health Care Reform Debate” →

Day Three – The Wrap Up

Merrill Goozner

Posted 3/29/12 on Gooz News

This is what conservative justices will do if they strike down or cripple the health-care law … A court that gave us Bush v. Gore and Citizens United will prove conclusively that it sees no limits on its power, no need to defer to those elected to make our laws. A Supreme Court that is supposed to give us justice will instead deliver ideology. now – E.J. Dionne, The Washington Post

The insurance mandate was effectively reduced to a bumper sticker by the opponents in their constitutional challenge, and the entire law reduced to little more than an appendage to the mandate. . . The fate of the mandate should not determine the survival of the other elements of the law — like prohibiting insurers from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions or charging them higher fees — which can operate without the mandate. – New York Times editorial

Overturning the whole law would be an act of judicial restraint. – The Wall Street Journal editorial

Continue reading “Day Three – The Wrap Up” →

If the Supreme Court Overturns the Individual Mandate

Robert Laszewski

Posted 3/28/12 on Health Policy and Marketplace Review

First, trying to predict how the Court will rule is at best just speculation. I know what Justice Kennedy said both today and yesterday and it certainly doesn’t look good for the Obama administration and upholding at least the mandate.

But I will remind everyone, based upon oral arguments, most Court watchers expected a ruling in favor of the biotech industry on a recent case involving health care patents. “Surprisingly,” the Court ruled against the industry.

Continue reading “If the Supreme Court Overturns the Individual Mandate” →

The Mandate May Fall, But Not Reform

Merrill Goozner

Posted 3/24/12 on Gooz News

Opponents of health care reform, whose case will be heard next week by the Supreme Court, base their complaint against the Obama administration’s signature domestic achievement on the claim that its individual mandate to purchase health insurance is unconstitutional.

Challengers, including state attorneys general and governors in a majority of states, say it represents an unwarranted extension of the constitution’s commerce clause into the personal realm of individual choice. If people do not want to buy a particular product – in this case health insurance – the government has no right to make them.

Continue reading “The Mandate May Fall, But Not Reform” →

Defending the Affordable Care Act

Merrill Goozner

Posted 3/14/12 on Gooz News

What will they do? The Supreme Court (more or less) that gave us Bush v Gore in 2000 will later this month hear arguments by states challenging the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. health care reform. The heart of the legal challenge raised by conservative state attorneys general is whether the individual mandate is constitutional. What happens if the Supremes say no? Does the entire law fall, or just the mandate?

The issue for lawyers is called “severability.” Did Congress when passing the law believe the mandate was necessary to the smooth functioning of the rest of the law? Clearly there are large swaths of the law for which the mandate is largely irrelevant: the physician payments sunshine act (disclosure of drug company payments to doctors); the creation of the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute to conduct comparative effectiveness research; the numerous payment pilot projects; and more.

Continue reading “Defending the Affordable Care Act” →

Dismantling the Affordable Care Act: The Obama Supreme Court Argument + 51 Republican Senators

Robert Laszewski

Posted 2/9/12 on Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review

I have no idea which way the Supreme Court will rule this year on the Affordable Care Act. Let me go out on a limb and predict a 5-4 vote on the question of whether the individual mandate is Constitutional. Just don’t ask me which way the vote goes.

I found the recent Obama administration brief submitted to the Court on the mandate question somewhat ironic. Not surprisingly, the Obama Justice Department argued that a finding by the Court that the individual mandate is unconstitutional should not jeopardize the vast majority of the new health law.

Continue reading “Dismantling the Affordable Care Act: The Obama Supreme Court Argument + 51 Republican Senators” →

Making the Constitutional Argument

Paul Levy

Posted 1/14/12 on Not Running A Hospital

14 Jan 2012 05:30 AM PST

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley has submitted an amicus brief in the pending Supreme Court case about the national health reform legislation. The brief focused on the “individual mandate” portion of the law. I think it is really well done and I copy the argument summary here:

Having enacted six years ago a prototype of the comprehensive healthcare reform package that Congress would later adopt in 2010, Massachusetts is in a unique position to assess the rationality of the assumptions that underlay both enactments. Specifically, the Court has held that the Commerce Clause empowers Congress to regulate activities that substantially affect interstate commerce. Congress properly exercised that power in adopting a provision in the ACA that requires all non-exempt persons to purchase at least a minimum level of health insurance coverage. Through its legislative findings, Congress rationally concluded that those who fail to purchase health insurance despite their ability to pay for it (“free riders”) not only drain finite State and federal free-care resources, but also negatively impact the availability of privately-issued health insurance policies and the prices at which such policies are sold. Congress further concluded that curtailing the practice of “free riding” would make private health insurance coverage easier for individuals both to procure and to afford.

Continue reading “Making the Constitutional Argument” →

Health Reform Briefs: The Minimum-Coverage Requirement And Other Issues

Timothy Jost

Posted 1/07/12 on The Health Affairs Blog

As every reader knows, the Supreme Court has agreed to consider challenges that have been brought to the constitutionality of two provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) by twenty-six states, the National Federation of Independent Businesses, and individual plaintiffs. The Court has scheduled the case for five and a half hours of oral arguments in late March. It will probably decide the case early in the summer.

Continue reading “Health Reform Briefs: The Minimum-Coverage Requirement And Other Issues” →

Supreme Court Goes Beyond Individual Mandate

Merrill Goozner

Posted 11/14/11 on Gooz News

The Supreme Court, as expected, will consider the constitutionality of the individual mandate in health care reform. But as Tim Jost, a Washington and Lee University professor of law, noted today on theHealth Affairs blog, the high court will also hear arguments on the constitutionality of using Medicaid to expand insurance coverage to people earning up to 138 percent of the poverty line. States are challenging this mandate under what the attorneys general in the 26 states challenging the law call “the coercion theory.” Noted Jost:

The coercion theory calls into question a multitude of federal government programs. Many federal programs, and not just health care programs, operate through conditional grants to the states. Were the Supreme Court to hold that the Medicaid expansions are unconstitutional, it would open every one of these programs to judicial challenge. New programs, or changes in existing programs, could be tied up for years as litigation proceeded. Such as decision could pose a much greater threat to the power of Congress to address national problems than might a decision holding that Congress exceeded its authority under the Commerce Clause in enacting the individual mandate. It would be a truly radical decision.

I don’t know that this cases yet rises to the level of a Dred Scott decision for the 21st century. But its framing by the states challenging the law has all the hallmarks of the southern states that challenged the 1964 civil rights act, claiming states had the right to nullify federal laws that prohibited local laws condoning segregation, impeding voting and the like. The stakes in this spat over the individual mandate have suddenly grown significantly larger.

In Praise of Individual Health Mandates

Kenneth Lin

Posted 11/1/11 on Common Sense Family Doctor

Last month, my family was involved in a scary traffic accident en route to the Family Medicine Education Consortium‘s North East Region meeting. I was in the left-hand eastbound lane of the Massachusetts Turnpike when a westbound tractor trailer collided with a truck, causing the truck to cross over the grass median a few cars ahead of us. I hit the brakes and swerved to avoid the truck, but its momentum carried it forward into the left side of our car. Strapped into child safety seats in the back, both of my children were struck by shards of window glass. My five year-old son, who had been sitting behind me, eventually required twelve stitches to close a scalp laceration. Miraculously, none of the occupants of the other six damaged vehicles, including the truck driver, sustained any injuries.

Family physicians like me, and physicians in general, like to believe that the interventions we provide patients make a big difference in their eventual health outcomes. In a few cases, they do. But for most people, events largely outside of the scope of medical practice determine one’s quality and length of life, and public health legislation is more likely to save lives than the advice of well-meaning health professionals. My colleagues can counsel parents about car seat safety until they’re blue in the face, but state laws requiring that young children be belted into car safety seats are what made the difference for my son between a scalp laceration and a life-threatening injury.

Continue reading “In Praise of Individual Health Mandates” →

Romney Jumps on the Waiver Bandwagon–And Creates Even More Uncertainty Over the New Health Care Law

Robert Laszewski

Posted 10/26/11 on Health Policy and Marketplace Review

Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney has pledged to end “Obamacare.” Upon taking office, he would immediately begin the process by granting the states waivers from having to implement it:

“I’ll grant a waiver on Day One to get repeal started. On Day One, granting a waiver for all 50 states doesn’t stop it in its tracks entirely. That’s why I also say we have to repeal Obamacare, and I will do that on Day Two, with a reconciliation bill [requiring only 51 votes in the Senate] because as you know, it was passed by reconciliation with 51 votes.”

Romney appears to be on thin ground in making his waiver promise and his promise to use reconciliation to stop “Obamacare” could lead to chaos in the market and among consumers.
Continue reading “Romney Jumps on the Waiver Bandwagon–And Creates Even More Uncertainty Over the New Health Care Law” →

The Massachusetts Health Reform “Disaster”

Joe Paduda

Posted 11/19/11 on Managed Care Matters

To hear the current GOP presidential candidates describe it, former Gov. Mitt Romney’s support for the 2006 Massachusetts health care reform initiative was the worst thing since the Spanish Flu.

We can chalk a lot of the hyperbole up to campaigning, but the critics raise some good points.

First, costs have gone up. That’s not surprising as more people are covered, many of whom didn’t have coverage before and therefore likely had medical issues that, once they were insured, they addressed. Moreover, Mass’ per-capita health care costs have been higher than the national average for a long time – this is a structural issue as much – if not more – than a result of reform.

Continue reading “The Massachusetts Health Reform “Disaster”” →

The Affordable Care Act Supreme Court Petitions: Issues and Implications

Timothy Yost

First posted 9/29/11 on The Health Affairs Blog

Wednesday, September 28 was a busy day at the Supreme Court clerk’s office.

It had been widely expected that there would be a major pleading filed with the clerk in an Affordable Care Act challenge, as the response of the United States to a certiorari petition in the Sixth Circuit’s Thomas More case, which had upheld the ACA as constitutional, was due. A cert. petition asks the Supreme Court to exercise its discretion to review the decision of a lower court, and the losing plaintiffs in Thomas More had requested the Supreme Court to reverse that decision and find that Congress had no authority under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution to adopt the ACA’s minimum coverage requirement.

Continue reading “The Affordable Care Act Supreme Court Petitions: Issues and Implications” →

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Joe Paduda

Rate this:

Rate this: