If the U.S. Supreme Court throws out the Affordable Care Act, your finances and your future could pay the price.
One week after votes for the next president are cast, the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in a blockbuster dispute involving the fate of Obamacare.
At issue in the case brought by a group of Republican-led states — which are backed by the Trump administration — is whether the health care law’s individual mandate to have health insurance is unconstitutional, since Congress abolished the financial penalty for individuals who do not purchase health insurance in its overhaul of the tax code in 2017. The justices are also tasked with deciding whether the rest of Obamacare can survive if the individual mandate is invalidated.
The stakes are enormous — for all kinds of Americans as well as the broader American economy.
Retiring early or starting a business might become too hazardous if your access to health insurance isn’t guaranteed. You might have to wait a year before preexisting conditions are covered by an employer’s plan. Young adults could be kicked off their parents’ policies. Millions of people who buy insurance through the ACA marketplaces or who now qualify for expanded Medicaid coverage funded by Obamacare in many states could lose their coverage as well.
Even if you were able to keep your health insurance, experts say you could face caps on your coverage that expose you to enormous medical bills. Preventive care and birth control could cost you more. Medicare beneficiaries could face higher premiums, deductibles and copays. Insurers could cancel your policy retroactively for even minor mistakes on your application.