There’s no denying that President Obama had a really good week. He persuaded Congress to support his Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, and a 6-3 Court decision reaffirmed the legality of his Affordable Care Act (ACA). It finally looks like Obama’s legacy is falling into place, so could any of this be bad for Democrats? Well, the merits of a “Democratic victory” in the King v. Burwell ruling on the ACA are actually far from clear.
The case boils down to the meaning of the phrase “Exchange established by the State,” which describes the insurance marketplaces from which users are eligible to receive federal tax subsidies. Conservatives argue that only exchanges developed and implemented by the states can receive federal subsidies, which Justices Thomas, Alito, and Scalia agreed with. But the Court’s majority ruled that any exchange facilitated by the state, including the federal exchange created by the Department of Health and Human Services, is eligible for federal subsidies.
The ambiguity of the phrase might seem trivial by itself, but the ramifications of striking down the provision would have been detrimental. Of the tens of millions of people who have obtained affordable health insurance through the ACA, seven million enrolled through the federal marketplace, and an overwhelming 87% of them receive federal tax subsidies that would have been lost. Moreover, two-thirds of these people have incomes below $23,500, which hinders their ability to pay out-of-pocket. The Supreme Court even acknowledged in its opinion that striking down the provision “would destabilize the individual insurance market…and likely create the very ‘death spirals’ that Congress designed the Act to avoid.” Of course, not all of the Court agrees. Scalia wrote a scathing dissent saying “words no longer have meaning” and that the other justices’ logic is “pure applesauce,” which might lead one to say that Scalia is “salty” about the decision.
Although the ACA has made insurance affordable for millions of Americans, stabilized the healthcare industry, and reduced the federal budget deficit even under conservative measures, a Kaiser Family Foundation poll still shows that more people view the ACA unfavorably than favorably (42% to 39%). This is why the ruling isn’t particularly advantageous for the Democrats in political terms. Yet if SCOTUS had actually struck down the provision, Republicans would be in a scramble because millions of Americans would blame their loss of insurance on the GOP. Meanwhile, the ACA’s supporters could pull out their handy statistics and share testimonies from people who lost their insurance to attack Republicans who had no agreement on how to deal with a collapsed health insurance marketplace—a Democratic field day.
But that didn’t happen. Instead, the Supreme Court has saved Republicans from their own, self-initiated demise by making their lack of a plan irrelevant to the public eye. However, the GOP now has the continued opportunity to attack “Obamacare” with repeal attempts and a place on the side of public opinion against the ACA. This will be useful for them, especially as Republicans rally their base ahead of next year’s presidential election and continue attempting to tarnish President Obama’s legacy.
So is this a political victory for either party? Not really. Since the law hasn’t changed, discourse on the issue will continue as it was. Republicans have already started pursuing new lawsuits challenging the ACA. Democrats made it out of this alive, but public opinion still leans against them. Regardless of the ruling’s political implications, the ACA is still helping to insure millions of Americans and reduce the federal deficit, and the Court’s majority concurs that “Congress made this act to help the healthcare marketplace, not destroy it.” Still, America’s peculiar and at times ambiguous opinion of the ACA makes its use in party politics unclear and sets the stage for a disorienting political landscape in 2016.