With Court Defeat, Republican Health Law Effort Aimed at '16
The Supreme Court's resounding rejection of a conservative attempt to gut President Barack Obama's health care overhaul won't stop Republicans from attacking the law they detest. But now, their efforts will be chiefly about teeing up the issue for the 2016 presidential and congressional elections.
The court's decision left Republican lawmakers stunned and uncertain about some of their next steps. Most agreed they would continue trying to annul the entire law and erase individual pieces of it, like its taxes on medical devices. Yet many also conceded they have little leverage to force Obama to scale back — let alone kill — one of his most treasured legislative achievements.
"We'll continue to pick away at the law," said Republican Sen. John Barrasso, a leader of Senate Republican efforts to craft a bill responding to a court victory that never came. "But ultimately our goal is to repeal and replace, and that's not going to be possible until after the 2016 elections," when Republicans hope for a Republican president.
That leaves Republicans mostly using efforts to void or dramatically weaken the health care overhaul to contrast their views with Obama's for voters.
Yet though few would admit it, the court's ruling caused many Republicans to exhale with relief.
By leaving intact federal subsidies that help millions afford health care, the ruling lets Republicans bash Obama's law in their 2016 campaigns without having to quickly help those who would have lost assistance. Taking away those benefits could have created many angry voters.
"There isn't some sort of, that sword of Damocles hanging over our heads that people are going to lose their care in 30 days or something," said Republican Rep. Greg Walden, who heads House Republican campaign efforts.
Republicans have promised to repeal and replace Obama's law since its 2010 enactment, but have yet to rally behind a plan doing that. A bill temporarily continuing the subsidies this year would have faced a difficult path to passage, thanks to conservative reluctance to abet Obama's health law in any way.
Had the Republican-backed lawsuit by conservatives succeeded, the 34 states likeliest to lose subsidies included many that will be pivotal in next year's elections. That included Florida, a key presidential state where a national high of 1.3 million people could have lost assistance, plus Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin and New Hampshire, where Republican senators could face tight re-election battles and worried about constituents losing aid.
"The court has saved Republicans from themselves," said former Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, who once led the House Republican political organization.
Underscoring that the court decision left intact the issue's high-wattage political appeal, it took just minutes for both sides to use the ruling for political fundraising. Republican hopeful Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, emailed for money to stop "the overreaches of the last six years," while Senate Democrats warned that Republicans have "pledged to destroy Obamacare."
The decision was a relief to the health care industry, which feared chaos in the insurance market, and business groups hoping Congress would now turn to making specific changes in the law to ease employers' costs.
In Thursday's ruling, the justices by 6-3 left intact subsidies that help 8.7 million people buy health insurance — most of whom analysts say couldn't otherwise afford coverage.
Conservative plaintiffs said the law's wording limited that aid to states running their own insurance marketplaces — not the three dozen states using the federal website HealthCare.org. The law's defenders said killing those subsidies would destabilize health insurance by increasingly leaving only sicker, costlier people with coverage — raising everyone's rates.
"Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion, using the law's formal name. Roberts' deciding vote found the law constitutional in 2012.
"We should start calling this law SCOTUScare," said dissenting Justice Antonin Scalia, using the court's acronym.
Savoring his triumph at the White House, Obama noted that his law has had five years to take hold and said: "This is not about the Affordable Care Act as legislation, or Obamacare as a political football. This is health care in America."
Even so, Republicans had little reason to back off, especially those concerned about primaries from conservative challengers. An April Associated Press-GfK Poll showed that 71 percent of Republicans oppose the law, compared to 33 percent of independents and 14 percent of Democrats.
Source: Associated Press
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