This week the Supreme Court hears the King vs. Burwell case.
One section of the law specifies that financial aid will only go to those who purchased coverage on "an exchange established by the state." In other words, the court is going to rule on whether aid can go to people who purchase their health insurance through the federal government exchange.
Arguments both for and against can be found here or here.
What I want to talk about is what happens if the Supreme Court rules in favor of taking away subsidies from people who purchased coverage through the federal exchange because their state did not setup an exchange.
If this happens, the onus will be on the GOP-controlled Congress to do something.
The first plan is not a plan
Recognizing this potential political pickle, three Senators (Orrin Hatch , Lamar Alexander and John Barrasso) penned an op-ed in the Washington Post outlining the Republican "plan".
Their idea is to change nothing for a year. Then they mumbled something about giving states more freedom and flexibility. Except all of this already seems to be in the law.
As Joan McCarter points out, this isn't much of a plan.
The second plan seems strangely familiar
The second plan also comes from the Senate via Paul Ryan and Fred Upton.
As Joan McCarter also points out, this plan seems very similar to Obamacare with some of the familiar GOP calls for tort reform and eliminating the individual mandate.
The individual mandate, however, is the one sticking point for insurance companies. Without it, healthy individuals would "opt out" until they need insurance. It is the linchpin of the entire law.
The pickle
How will the GOP get any of this through the House when the House can barely pass a 1-week extension to the Department of Homeland Security?
The Republican base hates Obamacare.
Here is how Michael Greve, a law professor at George Mason University and former director of the federalism project at the American Enterprise Institute described it:
The bastard has to be killed as a matter of political hygiene. I do not care how this is done, whether it's dismembered, whether we drive a stake through its heart, whether we tar and feather it and drive it out of town, or if we strangle it. I don't care who does it, whether it's some court someplace or the United States Congress, any which way, any dollar spent on that goal is worth spending.
Conservative talk radio is
not nearly as kind.
Yet if the conservative Supreme Court rules against this provision and Congress fails to act, millions of Americans will suddenly lose subsidies that help make health insurance affordable.
The two options for Congress are: 1) cut subsidies to an estimated 8.2 million Americans, or 2) find a way to pass a reasonable fix.
We all know how reasonable the conservative base is and how willing they are to work with other Republicans.
If John Boehner thought passing funding for the Department of Homeland Security was tough, I wonder if he's looking forward to trying to find a compromise fix if the Supreme Court rules in favor of the plaintiff.
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David Akadjian is the author of The Little Book of Revolution: A Distributive Strategy for Democracy.