June is upon us, meaning we can expect the issuance of decisions on the more controversial issues the Supreme Court has weighed this year, including whether subsidies under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are available only in states with their own exchanges or also on the federal Obamacare website, HealthCare.gov.
The wording in the 1,300-page document would seem to indicate that premium subsidies are available only in states that establish their own exchanges, or health insurance marketplaces, but proponents of the law argue that the intent was otherwise and the wording merely a mistake.
Should a majority of the nine justices strike down the provision, however, a quick remedy is at hand, according to Scott Gottlieb, M.D., of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, who appeared on CNBC this morning to discuss the issue.
Gottlieb said the Obama administration could merely issue a regulation redefining state insurance exchanges, allowing now-non-compliant states to put up a shell website that defaults to HealthCare.gov.
“If the administration does that, which I think they will, that’s going to put a lot of pressure on red state governors to go along, because it’s going to be very easy to for them to now comply to get the subsidies,” he told his CNBC hosts. He also pegged the administration’s chances of winning in court at 70 percent.
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