Tomorrow, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear yet another argument challenging the Affordable Care Act – what the president himself now calls Obamacare. This time, challengers to the Obamacare claim four words in the 2,000 page law could kick the legs out from under the insurance mandate.
If the Supreme Court agrees, not only could it have profound implications for the almost 1.2 million Texans who’ve purchased healthcare through the federal marketplace, it could effectively render Obamacare functionally inoperable.
At issue in King v. Burwell is the argument that the Affordable Care Act penalizes states that opted out of the federal health insurance marketplace. The four plaintiffs, including King, say the 34 states that opted out lost about $25 billion dollars in subsidies that help make health insurance affordable.
Jessica Lind Mantel is an assistant professor at University of Houston Law Center and the co-director of the Health Law and Policy Institute. She joins the Texas Standard to explain the implications of King v. Burwell.
