i await the decision on this:
WASHINGTON -- Experts have a pretty good sense of what will happen if the Supreme Court rules in favor of the plaintiffs in King v. Burwell, cutting off Obamacare’s tax credits in roughly two-thirds of the states. Without that financial assistance, most of the people now buying insurance through healthcare.gov, the online marketplace run by the federal government, wouldn’t be able to pay for their coverage anymore.
A ruling wouldn’t affect people living in states like California and Kentucky, which operate their own insurance marketplaces. But the results in the rest of the country would be dramatic and visible. More than 8 million people would end up uninsured, according to estimates by the non-partisan Urban Institute. Economic disarray would follow, as panicked insurance companies hiked premiums and pulled out of markets suddenly bereft of customers.
What the experts can’t say is how people would feel about such a shock, because it’s hard to think of a time when government took away benefits from so many people, across such a large swath of the country, within such a short time. There just isn’t a great historical analogue for predicting how people would react -- or, for that matter, how that reaction would affect politics. Even veteran strategists seem stumped.
But one recent episode may offer some clues. It comes, ironically enough, from Obamacare’s own history.
In the fall of 2013, insurance companies canceled coverage for millions of Americans, either because the old policies weren’t up to Obamacare’s standards or because the insurers decided the old policies were no longer profitable to sell. The cancellations surprised most Americans, not least because President Barack Obama had famously promised that people who liked their old insurance plans could keep them. You couldn’t turn on the television without hearing from somebody dismayed, angry, or scared about what was happening. Looking back at 2013, it’s hard to remember a time when, for better or worse, a change in domestic policy created so much turmoil.
The Freakout From An Obamacare Ruling Could Be Unlike Anything We've Seen
this will kill the ACA completely if it goes against the administration
without the credits, people wouldnt be able to afford the plans
