Thirty Republican senators are proposing to keep Obamacare subsidies flowing for two years should the Supreme Court strike them this summer.
Low- and mid-income people would be able to keep their subsidized health insurance plans through August 2017 — although no new enrollees would be allowed — under legislation introduced Tuesday by Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson and sponsored by 29 other senators.
It’s the latest GOP proposal for how to move forward if the Supreme Court blocks insurance subsidies to residents in a majority of the states in the closely-watched case King v. Burwell. If the court sides with the challengers, it would mean millions of Americans who are relying on subsidies to help afford insurance won’t get them anymore.
Republicans hope the subsidies are blocked, but at the same time they worry they could be blamed if Americans are suddenly deprived of the federal aid. House Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan is working on a contingency plan and other Republicans have outlined responses, too.
Johnson’s plan would maintain the subsidies for a longer period of time than any other Republicans have yet proposed. Prolonging them for two more years would give Republicans time to agree on how to approach Obamacare — including perhaps repealing it — should they win the White House in 2016. President Obama is likely to block any of their efforts to significantly change the law while he remains in office.
The plan would also repeal the Affordable Care Act’s mandates for individuals to buy health coverage and employers to offer it and let states spell out their own insurance coverage and benefit requirements.
“This bill is a transitional response that rescues Americans from the coercive nature of Obamacare, which is an unnecessarily complicated scheme that should not be resuscitated,” Johnson said in a statement.
Thirty-seven states are partially or fully relying on the federal website, healthcare.gov, instead of running their own insurance marketplaces. The King case aims to block the subsidies to states that did not set up their own exchanges, saying the law’s text doesn’t allow it.
