Until today, everyone has known that the idea of a Republican-controlled Congress taking 5 minutes out of their day to "fix" the wording "problem" in the ACA which they ginned up themselves was laughable...but to my knowledge, no sitting member of Congress (at least not one in a Senior leadership position, anyway) has come right and admitted this.
SCALIA: What about Congress? You really think Congress is just going to sit there while all of these disastrous consequences ensue? I mean, how often have we come out with a decision such as the you know, the bankruptcy court decision? Congress adjusts, enacts a statute that takes care of the problem. It happens all the time. Why is that not going to happen here?
NOTE: Shortly after Greg Sargent tweeted out a link to this story, I screwed something up and had to rewrite the entire piece. If you visited earlier and got a blank page, I apologize; it's 99% identical to what it was at the time.
Over at CNBC, Dan Mangan has a good write-up about 2 new polls out today regarding King v. Burwell...specifically, public support for the ACA's federal tax subsidies in the 34 states at risk:
Two new polls show strong public support for the high court maintaining financial aid that helps people in 34 states buy health coverage through the federal Obamacare marketplace.
The first survey, from Public Policy Polling, found that 61 percent of Americans believe that everyone in the U.S. at similar income levels should be able to get Obamacare subsidies regardless of where they live.
Support for that idea was strongest among Democrats, at 74 percent. But even a plurality of Republicans favored keeping subsidies for HealthCare.gov customers—49 percent in support, and 41 percent opposing the idea.
For months now, both ACA detractors and some supporters alike have kept asking the same question about King v. Burwell: What sort of "contingency plan" do President Obama, HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell and the Democrats in Congress have in the event that the plaintiffs win the case?
The House Republicans had sent an incredibly "CHOOTZ-PAH" filled letter to her demanding that she tell them what the HHS Dept's "contingency plan" would be in the event that the Supreme Court ends up doing their bidding by tearing away federal tax credits from 6.5 million people this summer.
Just over a year ago, just after the 2014 Open Enrollment period ended, Daily Kos founder & publisher Markos Moulitsas, along with his team, unexpectedly set up a fundraiser for me as a thank you for the work I put into the ACA Signups project for Year One (as well as to encourage me to keep it going for Year Two).
The folks over at dKos raised a substantial amount to help me out...for which I'm more grateful than they can ever know, becuase quite frankly, I had lost about half a year's income during the process and would have been in deep financial difficulty without their help (along with the generous folks here who had/have donated before and since then).
Over the years, I've consistently kept any personal favors to a minimum. I don't like to abuse the position you all have afforded me to make personal non-political requests. But I'm going to break from tradition for this special case.
If the U.S. Supreme Court decides later this month that 34 states including New Jersey are not permitted to share in federal subsidies used to lower the cost of Obamacare premiums, Gov. Chris Christie said Congress should "fix" the law to preserve the money.
The Republican governor and unannounced presidential candidate has been critical of the Affordable Care Act, calling it a "failed" program last year.
But when asked what he thinks ought to be done if the nation's highest court rules that only the 16 states that operate their own "exchanges" — an online hub to sell health insurance coverage — can receive subsidies, Christie did not call for rolling back the program.
"Congress should fix it," Christie said speaking outside the Corner View Restaurant in Concord, N.H. "If Congress messed up the statute, the Congress and the President created the statute; they should fix it. If they're saying it's not what they intended, then go back and fix it."
In 2014, Hawaii's enrollment numbers were pretty bad, but they were at least consistent: About 400 through the end of November; 2,200 at the end of December; 3,600 at the end of January, 4,600 at the end of February and about 8,600 through mid-April. Their cumulative total through the end of the off-season last year was just shy of 11,000, which again, was pretty in line with what I'd expect.
As you can see from the reposts below, for 2015, Hawaii's numbers have been all over the place, making sense some days and completely out of whack on others. The official HHS Dept. ASPE report has Hawaii with 12,635 QHPs selected for 2015 as of Feb. 21st...which sound about right to me (ie, that's a pretty lame number, but it's still around a 47% increase over 2014). Then, a few days ago, CMS released the effectuated enrollment numbers as of 3/31. For Hawaii, this number is 8,200...a 35% drop. While that's a disturbingly heavy drop (the other states averaged just a 13% "drop" overall), it's at least plausible.
Tom Wolf, the newly-elected (Democratic) Governor of Pennsylvania, announced back in March that yes, he would absolutely push to "establish" a state ACA exchange in the event of a King plaintiff win, and earlier this week he made good on this by formally submitting an application to the HHS Dept.:
Pennsylvania became the first state Tuesday to publicly put in motion a back-up plan to protect its federal health insurance subsidies in the event the Supreme Court dismantles a key part of President Obama’s health care law.
Among the major takeaways was that as of 3/31/15, effectuated (ie, active/paid for) private policy enrollments via the ACA exchanges stood at 10,187,197 people.
The spin on this via both the New York Times and the McClatchy Washington Bureau is that this means that "13% Left Health Care Rolls" (the Times) or, alternately, that "U.S. marketplace health plan enrollment falls to 10.2 million" (McClatchy).
Depending on your perspective, neither of these are accurate (although the first headline is worse; "13% left healthcare rolls" makes it sound as though over 40 million people suddenly became uninsured nationally).
As of this writing, the countdown clock reads 24 Days, 18 Hours, 14 Minutes and 27 Seconds. 21 Days, 0 Hours, 48 Minutes, 21 Seconds. However, the Court's decision could be announced as soon as 4 days from now! 1 Hour from now!Commenter "secretadvocate" noted that according to the Supreme Court's calendar, they plan on making their Major Decision announcements on each Monday of June. Since they took a pass on King a few days ago, that leaves 4 possible dates for the Big Announcement:
