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Supreme Court Rules On Obamacare Subsidies

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The Supreme Court ruled people states that do not have their own exchange can still receive subsidies.

Utahns who received subsidies for insurance under the Affordable Care Act can keep them, says the verdict of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling today.

In the King v. Burwell case, the plaintiff, David King, argued that under the Affordable Care Act, states that did not have their own exchanges should not receive subsidies.

A ruling in King’s favor would have taken subsidies away from people living in states like Utah, where they can receive subsidies through the federal exchange.

“We’re very happy that we can now get back to work and make this thing work eventually,” said Shaun Greene, chief operating officer of Arches Health Plan, a member-governed, non-profit health insurance option for Utahns.  

Greene said, had the Supreme Court taken subsidies away, it would have created new challenges. An example, he said, is that 70 percent of those covered by Obamacare would have lost their insurance, and premiums would have gone up 40 to 50 percent for the rest.

“Now we don’t have to deal with that,” Greene said. “We would have had to deal with that otherwise.”

Not everyone was happy with the ruling, including Evelyn Everton, state director of Utah’s chapter of Americans for Prosperity, a free-market advocacy group. She said even though the subsidies made it so some people can now afford insurance, the Affordable Care Act doubled premiums of those who were already covered.

“This law’s really been hurting people,” Everton said. “And I guess according to the Supreme Court ruling, it will continue to hurt people down the road.”

Greene argued that premiums are more expensive because before the Affordable Care Act, only healthy people could get insurance. He said now that everyone can get it, people with diseases are also covered, and healthy people are also paying for those who are sick.

“Certainly Obamacare, in the fact that we went to a community rating, things do cost more in that respect,” Greene said. “But again, the world that I think other folks are talking about would be the pre-ACA world, where not everybody could get insurance.”

Everton said Americans for Prosperity will continue to press Congress against Medicaid expansion, which she said could cost Utah taxpayers about $328 million.