If you’re wondering who would lose out in the latest Obamacare challenge before the Supreme Court, the law’s supporters are eager to tell you.
Health associations, liberal activist groups and minority advocates are drawing attention to the people who would be most deeply affected if the justices uphold King v. Burwell, a case brought by several individuals and businesses who argue that the Obama administration is awarding many health insurance subsidies illegally.
Opponents of the Affordable Care Act say a plain reading of the law’s text shows the subsidies — provided to low and middle-income people to buy private health plans — may be provided only in states running their own insurance marketplaces, and not in the 34 states relying entirely on healthcare.gov.
But advocates hope that by telling stories of the millions of people who could lose their subsidies should the court side with King, they’ll influence the justices’ final decision, expected to be handed down by July after oral arguments next Wednesday.
These folks are poor. Larger shares of them live in Southern or Western states. And they’re disproportionately likely to be a minority.
Take Sam Hyun, a Korean-American pastor highlighted Tuesday by the Asian and Pacific Islander American Health Forum. Hyun, who leads a small church in New Jersey, had been uninsured but bought a health plan using healthcare.gov. A month later, he experienced a heart attack, the group said.
“People like Hyun will be left to fend for themselves,” said Iyanrick John, senior policy analyst for the forum.
The effects on Pacific Islanders and Asians of losing their subsidies would be particularly noticeable in Texas, New Jersey and Florida, where the largest populations live, according to the forum. All three states are relying on healthcare.gov, the federal-run insurance marketplace.
In total about 9.3 million people would lose out on the subsidies in 2016 if they’re blocked by the court, according to an analysis by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute. More than 70 percent of minority recipients would become uninsured, compared to 62 percent of whites.
Conservatives say that would just open the door to doing away with a law they believe is detrimental and replacing it with something better — even though in the process many people would lose plans they already have. And that’s the point liberals have been pressing.
“This is a case that threatens to cause a meltdown in the health care system, there’s really no other way to say it,” said Michele Jawando, vice president of legal progress at the Center for American Progress. “The resulting chaos would ripple throughout the entire health care system.”
In January, Families USA hosted an event on Capitol Hill in January where consumers from Wisconsin, Indiana and North Carolina praised the subsidies that helped them buy health plans.
The group has filed a brief opposing the lawsuit — just one of nearly five dozen friend-of-the-court briefs various groups have written to express their support or opposition to Obamacare subsidies in the federal-run exchanges.
And on Wednesday, the Center for American Progress will host a call featuring Joe Lucas, a self-employed painter from Pittsburgh.
The center held a call Tuesday where Aurora Harris, a 26-year-old nonprofit worker in Houston, Texas, told her story. Harris said she grew up watching her mother suffer from lupus without health insurance. So when coverage was offered through the new marketplace, she was excited to buy a plan.
“I’m really just saddened by the fact that I just got something and it could be taken away from me so quickly,” Harris said.
