Joan McCarter: The one easy trick states could use to save Obamacare subsidies, if they cared

[LuckyTheDog]

I recently started following Joan McCarter, who blogs at Daily Kos. I think you folks might enjoy her work as much as I do. I have been republishing some of her posts at Wonky News Nerd -- totally allowable under the rules set up by Daily Kos -- with her permission.

The decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to hear an Obamacare subsidies case this session puts about 4.7 million people in jeopardy of losing their new health insurance. By the end of open enrollment for 2015, it could be as many as 9.7 million.

These are people who purchased their Obamacare insurance on the federal health insurance exchange because their states—36 of them in all—either refused to or failed to set up their own exchange. The lawsuit the SCOTUS will hear says that the text of the law prevents all those people from getting tax credits, a drafting error that would be easily fixed if Republicans cared about people being insured. Never mind that there’s ample Supreme Court precedent to toss the case, the very fact that they intend to hear it bodes poorly for the law.

There’s a way, though, that the primarily Republican governors and legislatures in those 36 states could protect their citizens by setting up their own exchanges. The federal grants to do so, unfortunately, run out this Friday, November 14. But there’s a relatively simple work-around even so.

States could still set up their own exchanges after Friday—as long as they do it with their own money, not federal funds. That could get expensive. But Nicholas Bagley, a professor at the University of Michigan law school, explains that there’s a relatively cheap workaround:

A state could…establish an exchange and appoint a state-incorporated entity to oversee and manage it. That state-incorporated entity could then contract with Healthcare.gov to operate the exchange. On the ground, nothing would change. But tax credits would be available where they weren’t before.

MORE HERE: http://wonkynewsnerd.com/joan-mccarter-one-easy-trick-states-use-save-obamacare-subsidies-cared/

[JoePhilly]

1. Correct.