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Reuters reports that the US Supreme Court has ruled 6 - 3 in favor of the nationwide availability of tax subsidies that are crucial to the implementation of President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law, handing a major victory to the President. It marked the second time in three years that the high court ruled against a major challenge to the law brought by conservatives seeking to gut it. "Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them," wrote Chief Justice Roberts, who added that nationwide availability of the credits is required to "avoid the type of calamitous result that Congress plainly meant to avoid." The ruling will come as a major relief to Obama as he seeks to ensure that his legacy legislative achievement is implemented effectively and survives political and legal attacks before he leaves office in January 2017.
Justice Antonin Scalia took the relatively rare step of reading a summary of his dissenting opinion from the bench. "We really should start calling the law SCOTUScare," said Scalia, referencing the court's earlier decision upholding the constitutionality of the law (SCOTUS is the acronym for the Supreme Court of the United States).
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday June 25 2015, @07:11PM
Subsidies. If you're taking Uncle's money, you owe Uncle. And, you bet your ass that Uncle is going to collect.
If the subsidies ONLY covered insurance premiums. (which I believe is the case), the price of premiums would rise to absorb ALL the available subsidies, which would force those non-subsidized insurance payers (unions, businesses, and individuals), to soon have to accept the subsidies.
The actual prices charged by health care vendors (doctors, hospitals etc) would be controlled ONLY by insurance companies will pay, pretty much as it has been. In the end insurers would still be allocating medical care, and adjusting premiums to recover all costs and some profit as well.
You might be able to regulate the profit level of insurers, (after all the government subsidies removes just about all risk). But without some financial reward nobody will sell insurance. The basic facts are than insurance needs to have a lot of healthy people in the system, AS WELL AS make money from investment of the premiums, and in order to cover high-cost cases, they have to make a profit on a significant portion of their subscribers.
With no incentive to keep premiums low the whole thing spirals out of control EVEN if you postulate a well managed government subsidies market.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2015, @05:05AM
There's the real problem, a bunch of disgusting sociopaths profiting off disease and sickness. Basic healthcare should not be done for-profit. Extra, non-essential stuff, sure, but everyone should be able to get healthcare without being extorted so the middlemen can line their pockets.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday June 26 2015, @08:12AM
But without some financial reward nobody will sell insurance.
Oh, sure they will! it's called "gambling", and a sucker is born every minute!