Undoing ‘Obamacare’ would harm more than the health of Americans
The Affordable Care Act remains on life support after a panel of federal judges ruled on Dec. 18, 2019 that the law’s individual mandate requiring people to buy health insurance is unconstitutional.
The decision hobbles the law in ways that are hard to predict politically, particularly in the upcoming election year. It also raises questions for the 20 million people who gained coverage in the marketplaces and all Americans who gained protections through the ACA.
The ACA’s individual mandate is a foundation of the law. Experts argued that the mandate was the only way to bring healthy people into an insurance pool. That is important to allow insurers to spread the costs among a broad mix of people, not just the sick. It served as a crucial bargaining chip for the Obama administration in br...