Clarifying the Affordable Care Act’s Requirement to Buy Coverage…

The following chart from the Henry J. Kaiser Foundation makes clear who has to buy health coverage under Obamacare and how much it will cost. I feel it is better to know how this really works than to hear Republicans as they cry that the world will come to an end.

The Requirement to Buy Coverage Under the Affordable Care Act

Along with changes to the health insurance system that guarantee access to coverage to everyone regardless of pre-existing health conditions, the Affordable Care Act includes a requirement that many people be insured or pay a penalty. This simple flowchart illustrates how that requirement (sometimes known as an “individual mandate“) works.

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• Dan Siegel: Obamacare & Parental Peace of Mind (huffingtonpost.com)
• Readers’ Obamacare questions answered by lawyers in live chat (mlive.com)
• Upholding the Affordable Care Act is a Win for Small Businesses (whitehouse.gov)

Decision is in… for the most part Obama has triumphed.

From the Financial Times:

US Supreme Court upholds bulk of ‘ObamaCare’

The US Supreme Court has left Barack Obama’s healthcare law broadly intact but ruled that an element of the law was not valid, handing the president a political victory.

In decision written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the majority of justices ruled that the individual mandate that compelled every American to buy insurance was not valid under the commerce clause of the Constitution. But they also ruled that the financial penalty outlined in the law against people who did not buy insurance was allowed. In effect, it means that the high court agreed with critics who said the mandate as written was unconstitutional, but that the implementation of the law will proceed much as it would have if the law had been completely upheld.

The mandate can now be enforced as a tax.

So the Mandate is unconstitutional, but it still may be applied with a different definition. This, of course, means Congress has to create the tax and the forthcoming conflict will be in this area.

Today the Supreme Court gets back to the Health Care Bill’s Constitutionality…

C-Span 3 has them scheduled to be on the air at 1:00 PM… I don’t know if that’s live or a replay, but it will cover the next stage of their discussions.Today is the second day of hearings (tomorrow is the third and last), with the justices moving from the technicalities of the first day to exploring the legal issues at the heart of whether the law is constitutional or not.

Most of the commentators I’ve heard in the last two days think the 22 Republican challengers (3 state governors, the rest Republican Attorneys General) will not get the law declared unconstitutional. If that is the case, any move to change or eliminate it goes back to Congress.

From 1992 to the near present, it was the Republicans who were pushing mor the Individual Mandate that everyone be required to have Health Insurance. It was only when Obama pushed it in his ACA bill that they came put against it. This is why it seems political more than nationally useful.

Anyway, I’ll be listening to the Court… so more later.

Related articles

• Supreme Court to Judge Obamacare’s Constitutionality (votingamerican.wordpress.com)
• Supreme Court To Take On Constitutionality Of Health Care Reform Law (dfw.cbslocal.com)
• Day 1 of ObamaCare Hearings Done (newser.com)
• Supreme Court likely to reach merits of individual mandate in Affordable Care Act (dailykos.com)
• A guide to the health-care case (economist.com)
• Nancy Pelosi Once Sneered At Questions About ObamaCare’s Constitutionality? That Must Mean the Law Is Constitutional! (reason.com)
• Reminder: The GOP Was FOR Individual Health Care Mandate Before They Were Against It (bradblog.com)
• Supremes plunge into the health care debate (capitolhillblue.com)
• Inside the Mind of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer (bigthink.com)
• Supreme Court tackles health care law (fox13now.com)
• Listen To Day One Arguments In Supreme Court Battle Over ObamaCare (mediaite.com)