The Supreme Court will be hearing arguments soon on whether or not the government subsidies given out under Obamacare are legal. If they strike down the subsidy part of the law--and that's a distinct possibility--then the law itself will be impaired and might not survive.
Even if the law survives, removing the government subsidies could result in a serious blow to the economy and could send the stock market tumbling.
Subsidies aside, Federal Government spending on health care has increased significantly since the law went into effect. In 2012, before the mandate, Federal outlays for Medicare and Medicaid totaled $814 billion. In 2013 when the mandate to have insurance was postponed for a year, spending on Medicare and Medicaid was $845 billion, an increase of 3.8%.
However, in 2014 when the law took effect, health care spending surged by $84 billion to $929 billion, a 10% increase. We will probably see another $16 billion more for this year.
Here is how the last three year looks with this year projected.
You can see from these numbers how much the economy can potentially lose. We can go back to very near the pre-Obamacare spending numbers, which means lopping off about $100 billion annually from total spending. That would be a big hit, not to mention the other economic destruction that would come from not raising the debt ceiling. The latter would put the Federal government on a "balanced budget" mode of operation, which would be a disaster.
2 comments:
Clearly the words of the law are problematic but...They have to punt or make a narrow decision because this is waaaayyyy too political and important for a judge with a lifetime appointment to get involved with a complicated law that has been under constant legislative review since it was passed.
The decision will be made by Roberts, whose sole concern is his legacy. That's why he voted for ACA in the first place.
If he feels he can vote with those four little words, without crippling ACA, that is what he will do.
Otherwise, he will quote precedence, which says, in effect, "Congress can't pass a law in which is buried a secret penalty against the states. The states must be made to understand the penalty, so they can take appropriate action."
His decision will have nothing to do with Constitutional law, but rather with whether he will be "blamed" for killing a popular law.
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