On Thursday, the Supreme Court handed down its verdict on King v. Burwell, rejecting the latest challenge to the Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act (ACA), commonly known as Obamacare. Relying on a single phrase in the more than 900-page bill, the four petitioners argued that the federal government could not offer health insurance subsidies to individuals who purchased health insurance through the federal exchange, healthcare.gov.
The court’s decision will allow some 6.4 million Americans in states that elected not to set up their own exchanges to keep their healthcare subsidies. But taking a broader view, according to Andrew Stern, the decision places a firmer foundation under a healthcare system designed for the twenty-first-century.
“By the end of the decade, some 40 to 50 percent of workers won’t have a full-time employer,” Stern, the former president of the Service Employees International Union and senior fellow of Columbia Business and Law Schools’ Richman Center for Business, Law and Public Policy, asserts in reference to the rise of the “freelance” or “1099” economy. “This decision sets the stage for the future economy of America.”T
he US system of employer-based health insurance is unique amongst developed countries, having emerged as a means to skirt temporary wage controls during World War II. The system, Stern argues, has impeded growth in the US, dampening entrepreneurship and preventing some workers from moving to new jobs. “This decision solidifies the market the ACA created and the group purchasing power that makes it work.
Read More: A Critical Provision Saved, But Challenges Remain for the Affordable Care Act | articles
