Obamacare News of the Day

Forbes: Surprise! White House To Delay 'Firm' Obamacare Enrollment Deadline Past March 31

• Though the Obama administration repeatedly insisted that its March 31 enrollment deadline for Obamacare’s first year was “firm,” many observers predicted that the administration would combat lagging sales of health law-sponsored insurance plans by extending that deadline. Sure enough, on Tuesday night the White House indicated that it would be postponing that drop date in order to squeeze as many people as possible into the program. The original open enrollment period for the first year of Obamacare was set up to last for six months; instead it will last for 6.5 months.
• On March 11, Julie Bataille, the appropriately-surnamed spokeswoman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said that “we have no plans to extend the open enrollment period. In fact, we don’t actually have the statutory authority to extend the open enrollment period in 2014.” On March 12, when Rep. Kevin Brady of the House Ways and Means Committee asked HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius: “Are you going to delay the open enrollment beyond March 31st?” Sebelius replied, “No, sir.”
• However, in that same testimony, Sec. Sebelius gave herself the loophole that she is now using to push back the deadline. “We have made it clear that if, through no fault of their own, they were unable to enroll, that eligibility extends to a delayed enrollment period, and they will have a special enrollment period we have the authority to grant.” But the administration isn’t going to bother with those caveats in the end. Reports Goldstein, people who haven’t signed up by March 31 will be able to “rely on an honor system” to attest that “they tried to enroll before the deadline…the government will not try to determine whether the person is telling the truth.”

The Transom: Hobby Lobby Showdown

• A recap of yesterday’s Hobby Lobby arguments is here. There are reasons to be optimistic within it: both Justices Kennedy and Roberts eradicated key aspects of the government’s argument. “The low point for Verrilli, however, came late in his argument, when Justice Kennedy told him bluntly: “Under your view, for-profit corporations can be forced to pay for abortion.  Your reasoning would permit that….  You say that for-profit corporations have no standing to litigate what their shareholders believed.” Wisely, and predictably, Clement would start his rebuttal with Kennedy’s comment about corporations being forced to pay for abortions.  He obviously wanted that thought to linger as the Justices left the bench.”
• ...a narrow decision is likely – perhaps one which protects the rights of non-profits – but that it’s too optimistic to expect a victory here after our prior experience with Obamacare decisions. The likeliest scenario is that Hobby Lobby’s unwillingness to pay for four forms of birth control – Plan B, Ella, and two IUDs – for their employees leads to all of us having to pay for them, instead, either through subsidies or through Medicaid.

USA Today: Hobby Lobby isn't today's most important case

• Obamacare supporters call Halbig "the greatest existential litigation threat to the Affordable Care Act." That description, while colorful, is not quite accurate. Halbig does not ask the courts to strike down any part of the law. It merely asks the court to force the administration to implement the law as Congress intended, a prospect that absolutely terrifies Obamacare supporters.
• Obamacare authorizes the IRS to provide health-insurance subsidies (nominally, tax credits) to consumers who purchase health insurance "through an Exchange established by the State." That's not a drafting error. The subsidy-eligibility rules employ that language a total of nine times, without deviation. The rest of the statue is fully compatible with this language.
• The statute is therefore clear and unambiguous: the IRS may issue subsidies in the 14 states that established an exchange, but not in the 34 states that left the job of establishing and operating their state's exchange to the federal government. Congress' purpose is likewise clear. It wanted states to operate the exchanges, so it conditioned subsidies on state cooperation. Medicaid and countless other federal programs do the same. The IRS's philosopher-kings have decided to issue subsidies in those 34 states anyway.
• [RELATED] Legal Times: D.C. Circuit Skeptical of Affordable Care Act Subsidies
  • “If legislation is stupid, I don’t see that it’s up to the court to save it,” said Senior Judge A. Raymond Randolph, who described the federal health care law as “cobbled together and badly written.”
  • Randolph and Judge Thomas Griffith seemed inclined to side with foes of the law, who told the panel that lower-income people are only eligible for tax credits if they buy health insurance through an exchange established by a state—not one set up by the federal government. Senior Judge Harry Edwards, by contrast, found the argument “preposterous” and said it would effectively “gut” the health care law. A Washington federal trial judge in January ruled for the government.
  • Jones Day partner Michael Carvin, who argued on behalf of a group of small-business owners and individuals in six states in Halbig v. Sebelius, described the issue as “a very straightforward statutory construction case. … If the statutory language is completely unambiguous, that should be the end of the matter.”
• [RELATED] Washington Examiner: It's time for the White House to start sweating over legal challenge to Obamacare subsidies
  • Were the case to succeed, it would mean that dozens of state governments opposed to Obamacare could significantly narrow its scope by refusing set up exchanges, thus preventing residents from claiming subsidies. In those states, employers wouldn't be penalized for failing to offer qualifying insurance (which is triggered by workers seeking federal subsidies), meaning that anti-Obamacare states could become more attractive to businesses trying to get around the employer mandate. It would also increase pressure on Congress to undo the individual mandate.
  • On the flip side, such a ruling would also place pressure on anti-Obamacare governors, who would be forced to decide whether to stand firm in opposition to Obamacare or to set up their own exchanges so residents can apply for subsidies.
• [RELATED] New York Times: Arguments Against Health Law Subsidies Gain Traction

The Hill: Poll: 60 percent believe ObamaCare will raise healthcare costs

• The survey released Tuesday by The Morning Consult found that 60 percent believe ObamaCare will likely increase their healthcare costs in the long run. Twenty-eight percent said their costs would likely remain unchanged, and 11 said they believed their costs would go down.
• Voters also believe the Affordable Care Act’s impact on the quality of and availability of their coverage will be more negative than positive. Only 23 percent said the law would have a positive impact on the quality and availability of their coverage, against 37 percent who said it would have a negative impact. Forty-percent percent said their coverage would likely remain about the same.
• Forty-one percent said the healthcare law would make their lives worse, 35 percent said it would have no effect, and only 24 percent said it would make their lives better.

National Review Online: Nevada's Criminal Navigators

• … at least eight Obamacare navigators [the Nevada Division of Insurance] licensed had criminal pasts. National Review and the Las Vegas Review-Journal had to sue the Division to obtain those public records, and navigators’ criminal histories are not the only disturbing fact we discovered. Half of the navigators who’d had run-ins with the law had failed to disclose it on their applications, despite the requirement to do so — but they received Division approval anyway, the records show.
• And before the open-enrollment push began, insurance commissioner Scott Kipper briefly approved conditional certification for some navigators before their background checks were complete, prematurely clearing them to access consumers’ confidential information, including Social Security numbers, home addresses, and financial records.

New York Times: Why I'm Jealous of My Dog's Insurance

• Nelson’s health insurance covered 90 percent of the costs after a reasonable $500 deductible. I’m happy he has such good health coverage. He’s my dog. And I’m jealous of him. He has the kind of health care that I’d hoped the Affordable Care Act would usher in for those who, like my wife and me, have to buy health insurance on the open market. I’d long been frustrated at how health care shackles people to corporate jobs. I believed this legislation, signed four years ago this month, would free people to pursue their dreams, start new companies and not worry about the health insurance penalty.
• What I didn’t count on was that it would make things harder for me and my wife. First, we were notified that we would be kicked out of our existing $263-a-month Anthem Blue Cross plan because it didn’t meet the minimum standards of the new law. No problem, I thought. The plans in the new Covered California exchange would most likely be better and cheaper.
• But we were shocked at what we confronted. The least expensive premium for a couple like us in our 40s would be about $620 a month. And because our household adjusted gross income is likely to be over the $62,040 cutoff this year, it’s doubtful we’ll end up with a subsidy to help offset that price increase.