Delaware braces for Supreme Court ClusterF@ck
If the GOP justices on the Supreme Court get their partisan political way, and rule to overturn key provisions of the ACA on completely bogus and trumped up grounds, Delaware will be ready.
Facing a possible Supreme Court ruling on Obamacare that could cost residents millions of dollars in subsidies to buy health insurance, Delaware has put in motion a plan that could protect the state from the effects of such a decision.
Rita Landgraf, Delaware’s health and social services director, confirmed to TPM Wednesday that the state has filed a “blueprint” to the federal government to take more responsibility for its Obamacare exchange to blunt the potential effects of a pending Supreme Court ruling in King v. Burwell.
Currently Delaware’s exchange is a state-federal hybrid-run marketplace, but this week Delaware submitted what Landgraf called a “plan for a plan” to move to a federally-supported state-based marketplace.
“I feel moving to a [federally] supported state-based market place is not that heavy of a lift for us,” Landgraf said. She emphasized that her department is continuing to do the financial due diligence to determine what the change would cost the state and consumers. She said Delaware will consider the move even if the Supreme Court rules to uphold the subsidies in King v. Burwell.
Landgraf said it remains unclear how an adverse Supreme Court ruling would affect a hybrid marketplace like Delaware’s. But Delaware could stand to lose more than $5 million in health insurance subsidies if the Supreme Court rules that the Affordable Care Act does not permit participants on federally-run exchanges to receive tax credits for their insurance premiums. Currently, some 21,000 Delaware residents receive the subsidies, or about 84 percent who have purchased plans on the marketplace, according to Landgraf.
The insurance companies comprising the Delaware marketplace have their plan to: double digit increases next year in premiums; major, major increases. Thank you very much greedheads.
Given what Rita Landgraf and KWS have done (only to cite the most recent case) with turning over tens of thousands of Medicaid accounts to Highmark, pardon me if I’m not incredibly re-assured that she’s got a plan.
Real question is will the Roberts Court finally push the general public over the edge and against the court as a whole. If so there will be the usual gloating from the right, followed by anger and a desire for political revenge. And not necessarily at the polls either as more than a few will not want to wait for the 2016 election. The supreme court lives a cloistered life most of the time, it may well turn to sequestered in the future.
It’s nice that Delaware has a plan to implement its own exchange if an adverse Supreme Court ruling comes down. But such a ruling would be a major blow to the ACA. If the ACA effectively fails in half the states, it’s hard to see how that bad result somehow leaves Delaware unscathed.