The 26 states that have challenged President Barack Obamas healthcare law face several dilemmas as they try to convince the Supreme Court to declare the law’s Medicaid expansion unconstitutional The two lower courts that heard the Medicaid challenge ruled in favor of the Obama administration, even as those judges struck down the healthcare law’s individual mandate. Legal experts on both sides of the mandate debate were surprised that the Supreme Court agreed to also hear the Medicaid piece of the state’ lawsuit. The healthcare law’s supporters claim that the states erred in their initial brief on the Medicaid expansion, which was filed with the Supreme Court.
According to the states involved in the lawsuit. the ACA’s Medicaid expansion is “coercive.” Although state participation in the program is strictly voluntarily, the brief argues, the healthcare law makes it impossible for states to opt out of Medicaid. The brief tries hard to link the Medicaid expansion to the individual mandate, arguing that states won’t be able to exercise their legal right to leave Medicaid because it’s the only way for Medicaid-eligible residents to fulfill the mandate.
“While the (Affordable Care Act) purports to leave states’ participation in Medicaid nominally voluntary, multiple aspects of the Act evince Congress’ keen awareness that, in fact, no state will be able to reject its new terms and withdraw from the program,” the brief says. “Most obviously, the ACA’s individual mandate requires Medicaid-eligible individuals to obtain and maintain insurance.” But most Medicaid-eligible people would be exempt from the mandate, said Timothy Jost, a law professor at Washington and Lee University and a supporter of the health law.
Then there’s the Supreme Court case, which will be heard in the spring and a verdict announced prior to the November presidential election. According to Kurt Mainwaring, a ksl.com contributor, “Far-reaching consequences of the court’s ruling will likely impact both the cost of healthcare and the outcome of the 2012 elections. If the Supreme Court rules that ACA is constitutional, healthcare costs will likely continue to rise — although at a slower rate than if the law were determined to be unconstitutional. At present, healthcare costs make up approximately 18 percent of GDP. If expenditures continue on their current trajectory, “the share of GDP devoted to healthcare in the United States is projected to reach 34 percent by 2040.” Translated to real numbers, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) notes that Americans paid approximately $1,000 annually in healthcare costs in 1960; more than $7,000 per year in 2007; and are projected to pay more than $13,000 per year by 2018. This kind of increase in healthcare costs is not sustainable — and these kinds of projections are part of the reason ACA was enacted in the first place.
Beach Conger, a Vermont internist writing in the Burlington Free Press believes that “Medicare for All” — a possibility that was raised during the lengthy debate over the ACA — should be reconsidered. According to Conger, “Medicare and I were born in the same year. Professionally speaking, that is. We were raised together, and we have been married to each other for what seems an eternity. As with any long-term relationship, we have had our ups and downs, but we have both matured over the years, and I believe we are both the better for it. Without being too vain, I have to say I have done a better job at providing health care, and I have to admit that Medicare has helped me do it. At first, it just made sure that those retired people who wished to pay me the fees to which those in my line of work have become so accustomed, could actually do so. But eventually it realized that there was more to the business than just money, and it began to keep an eye over my shoulder, making sure I was not leaving undone those things which ought to be done and not doing those things which I ought not. So I can’t help but think, why not Medicare for everyone? It would be so simple. And that’s when I realized. It was too simple.”
Dr. Conge, it should be pointed out, lives in Vermont, to date the only of 50 states to enact a single-payer public option — Green Mountain Care.
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