The U.S. Supreme Court has likely already
decided how much, if any, of President Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act it
is going to strike down as unconstitutional; its holding will be published this
summer. No matter what the Court decides, though, it will send state and
federal legislators scrambling—either to implement the law or to deal with the
consequences of its alteration. There are various decisions the Court might make,
but it is still most apt either to leave the ACA standing, or to selectively
invalidate some of its mandate-related provisions. In either case, there will
be exchanges to design and manage, subsidies to allocate, transparency
standards to design and enforce. The Court’s decision will thus mark the
beginning, not the end, of health reform.
The U.S. Supreme Court has likely already
decided how much, if any, of President Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act it
is going to strike down as unconstitutional; its holding will be published this
summer. No matter what the Court decides, though, it will send state and
federal legislators scrambling—either to implement the law or to deal with the
consequences of its alteration. There are various decisions the Court might make,
but it is still most apt either to leave the ACA standing, or to selectively
invalidate some of its mandate-related provisions. In either case, there will
be exchanges to design and manage, subsidies to allocate, transparency
standards to design and enforce. The Court’s decision will thus mark the
beginning, not the end, of health reform.