As strange as it may sound, President Obama’s recent statements give the impression that he’s willing to let his health care law go on life support—if he can claim Republicans pulled the plug.
The catalyst for the next Obamacare battle is the U.S. Supreme Court’s imminent decision in King v. Burwellover whether federal health insurance subsidies will continue to flow to the 37 states that did not set up their own health insurance exchanges.
If the Court rules for King—which means against the White House and Obamacare—an estimated 6.5 million people in those states will no longer receive federal help paying for health insurance. And that means millions of them will drop their coverage because Obamacare is so expensive.
But it also means that millions of middle-income Americans will no longer be required to have health coverage, or penalized if they don’t have it, because they can’t find what the law defines as “affordable coverage.”
Republicans have been considering various options to ensure that subsidies will still be available, at least temporarily, if the Court rules for King. Many of them are concerned that a King decision could be a public relations nightmare for Republicans, as Obama and Democrats claim that it’s all Republicans’ fault that, in essence, Democrats botched the wording in Obamacare.
Obama has dramatically stepped up his political scolding and moralizing, targeted both at Republicans and the Court—his usual practice when he feels he may be on the losing end of a tussle.
He has indicated that he would sign a once-sentence law saying that those states would continue to get the subsidies, but not something that makes any significant changes to the law.
For their part, Republicans see a King decision as perhaps their last best chance to make any changes to Obamacare—that is, without a Republican president and large majorities in the House and Senate that could pass whatever they wanted. So they have indicated they have little or no interest in passing a stand-alone state-subsidy bill.
And while Obama no doubt wants his “signature legislation” to succeed, claiming that he and millions of Americans are the victims of Republican vindictiveness may be an acceptable alternative—at least politically.
Think of it like the person who got married thinking and telling friends it would be the dream relationship, only to discover after the I-dos that the new spouse had all kinds of problems—problems that might have been easily recognized had the person only taken a little more time and listened to a few friends. Fixing the damaged spouse’s faults might the desired goal, but at some point separation or divorce may become appealing, especially if everyone holds the good spouse blameless.
For all of Obama’s repeated assertions that Obamacare is great health insurance that is helping millions of people get coverage, he has to know that it has lived up to virtually none of his promises. Premiums are skyrocketing, millions of people lost coverage they were very satisfied with (including my wife), millions more have not been able to keep their doctor, administration costs are much higher, emergency room visits are up, measures to ensure improvements in the quality of care have failed, the rollout of the plan was a disaster, and now many states are complaining that their health insurance co-ops are losing money and they can’t afford to maintain their health insurance exchanges.
If the president could divorce himself from these problems while accusing “cynical” Republicans of killing the law and imposing irreparable harm on millions of middle-income Americans, that might help his legacy and Democrats running for office next year. A political two-fer.
And you know a lot of Democrats running for office would like to avoid having to defend, yet again, Obamacare with its multiple problems.
So look for the president to stand firm against Republicans trying to find a way to provide people with health insurance subsidies, should King prevail. If he wins he can claim to be a hero of a troubled law that most Americans don’t like. If he loses he can claim that he and millions of Americans were the victims—which might be an easier political sell for his legacy and his party.