Mr. Obama’s advisers continue to say they are confident the law will survive the court challenge. But if it does not, within weeks of the ruling the government will have to stop sending tax credits to insurance companies on behalf of the millions who signed up through HealthCare.gov and were promised hefty subsidies to offset the cost of premiums.
Most of those people would no longer be required by the law’s individual mandate to have insurance, because part of the law provides exemptions when affordable insurance is not available. As a result, all but the sickest would choose to cancel their insurance, experts predicted.
With healthy people no longer choosing to be covered, experts said, most insurance companies would pull out of the markets in those states rather than cover only the sickest — and most expensive — customers.
The result would be a “death spiral,” according to the Supreme Court brief filed by America’s Health Insurance Plans, the nation’s health insurance trade group. “It would leave consumers in those states with a more unstable market and far higher costs,” the group argued in the brief.
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