You know the left is concerned that it could lose the King v Burwell case before the U.S. Supreme Court because its mouthpieces are pulling out all stops to claim millions of Americans would be hurt by a decision for King. But a better case can be made that MORE Americans will benefit if King wins this Obamacare challenge.
The question before the Court in King is not a constitutional one. King only asks whether the government must abide by the plain language of a law it passed. Adhering to what a law says has been particularly difficult for President Obama and his administration.
Obamacare specifically states that subsidies to help cover the cost of insurance premiums are only available to those people enrolled “through an exchange established by the State under section 1311 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.”
Only 13 states set up their own exchange; the other 37 either didn’t try or failed and so relied on the federal government to do it. The Obama administration has decided to hand out the subsidies to people in every state anyway, in complete disregard for the law.
A King victory would eliminate the taxpayer-provided subsidies for perhaps 7 million people in those 37 states; so they would have to pay the full cost of their coverage. Nothing would change in the other 13 states.
Liberals are apoplectic claiming that millions of Americans would lose their coverage, which is true. But Obama and those same liberals didn’t seem to mind when an estimated 4.7 million Americans had their policies canceled during the Obamacare rollout in the fall of 2013, and several million more last fall.
But the fact is that more Americans would be hurt by a King loss. Here’s why.
There are an estimated 30 million Americans still uninsured—roughly four times the number who have been helped by taxpayer-provided subsidies. Those uninsured will either have to pay a fine—or is it a tax, as Chief Justice John Roberts argued?—or convince the government they need an exemption from the mandate to have coverage.
Those penalties for 2014 range from the greater of $95 to 1 percent of the uninsured’s income. The 2015 penalty, which will be paid in 2016, rises to the greater of $325 to 2 percent of income.
Although the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the majority of uninsured would qualify for a penalty exemption, the Kaiser Family Foundation points out that millions of them don’t know about that option.
So 7 million people get a subsidy—some large, some small—but 30 million uninsured are liable for hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars in penalties unless they can convince the government they should get a reprieve. And remember, these are mostly lower and middle-income families, most of whom claim they remain uninsured because they can’t afford coverage.
But if the Court rules for King, most lower and middle-income people in those 37 states will be exempted from the mandate to have coverage—because they won’t be able to find “affordable coverage,” according to Obamacare—and so won’t face any penalties.
And as Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt explains, a King victory also exempts employers from the mandate to provide coverage or face a $2,000 or $3,000 penalty per employee for not providing it.
So, yes, if King wins, several million people will lose their health insurance subsidies and many of them won’t be able to afford coverage. By contrast, a win for Obamacare and Democrats means that tens of millions of uninsured Americans will have to pay a penalty in the hundreds or thousands of dollars.
Of course, there are many other ways millions of Americans are hurt by Obamacare, including higher health insurance premiums, more difficulty keeping your doctor, and higher taxes.
The Democrats only want you to know who is helped by Obamacare, but millions more are being hurt.