Affordable Care Act

Posted on March 26, 2012 by townsend

• Medicaid could be in Supreme Court’s sights, By David G. Savage and Noam N. Levey, March 25, 2012, Los Angeles Times: “Ever since the Democratic Congress passed President Obama’s healthcare law, critics have focused their ire on the requirement that all Americans have health insurance beginning in 2014. But some legal experts believe – and progressives worry – the Supreme Court’s conservatives will instead target another mandate in the new law: the requirement that states expand the Medicaid rolls and provide subsidized healthcare for as many as 17 million more low-income people. On Wednesday, the third day of oral arguments on the law, 26 Republican-led states will argue that the federal pressure to expand Medicaid to all low-income Americans violates states’ rights…”
• Health care law puts free clinics at a crossroads, By Elana Gordon, March 25, 2012, National Public Radio: “Free health clinics have long been places people turn to when they don’t have health insurance or any money to pay for care. But the health law’s expansion of coverage puts free clinics in uncharted territory. While the law goes before the Supreme Court this week, health providers are already gearing up for a surge in patients with insurance. Around the country, hundreds of free clinics have been established over the past 50 years to treat patients like Patsy Duarte…”
• Michiganders divided on law reforming health care as Supreme Court takes up challenges, By Patricia Anstett and Robin Erb, March 25, 2012, Detroit Free Press: “On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court will open three days of hearings on the constitutionality of President Barack Obama’s sweeping health care reform law, one of the biggest cases before the high court in decades. The law, the signature piece of legislation in the president’s administration, will require most Americans without health insurance to buy coverage by 2014 or face penalties. It would also expand Medicaid, require coverage of pre-existing conditions, bar insurers from placing lifetime dollar limits on essential benefits and usher in dozens of other changes affecting everyone from hospitals to businesses to individuals. Some of the changes have already been implemented since the bill was signed into law on March 23, 2010…”
• 500,000 more in Michigan to be eligible for Medicaid coverage, By Robin Erb, March 26, 2012, Detroit Free Press: “A half-million more Michiganders will be eligible for Medicaid, the government-funded health program for poor people, when the most sweeping provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act take effect in 2014. Supporters of the law say covering more poor people is not just socially responsible, it ultimately saves money: Better care keeps chronic conditions in check. But opponents will argue this week to the U.S. Supreme Court that Congress is overstepping its bounds by pushing the expansion onto states, which will lose their federal Medicaid funds if eligibility is not expanded…”