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Iowans' Health Insurance Threatened

tom miller
Joyce Russell
/
IPR file photo
Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller

Obamacare critics have gone to court to eliminate federal tax credits in most states.

Iowa’s top law enforcement officer has signed on in support of the subsidies which make insurance affordable.     The U.S. Supreme court could throw them out.   

Iowa Attorney general Tom Miller and 17 other Democratic Attorneys General have filed a brief in a case almost identical to the one that’s now before the nation’s highest court.  

“ What we argue is that all Americans should be treated the same,” Miller says.

Opponents  of  Obamacare are challenging the  program’s  federal tax subsidies for low to moderate income consumers.   They say the way it’s worded, the affordable care act limits tax credit only to consumers who sign up on state-run health exchanges.  Most states including Iowa don’t run their own exchanges.    Miller says states had every reason to believe their residents would get the subsidies when they signed on to the federal exchange.  

"When the federal government enters into a contract with the states,” Miller says, “they have to give clear notice of the terms of those contracts.”    

The Attorneys General estimate that by 2016, 78,000 Iowans would be affected. Backers of Obamacare say that will undermine the law.

This is the second time the very life of the affordable care act has been at the mercy of Supreme Court.  Justices upheld the heart of the law in a five to four decision in 2012.  

Tom Miller says the current suit revolves around not the spirit but the wording of the law,  what he calls a "gotcha" argument.    One leading supporter of Obamacare , State Senator Joe Bolkcom, a Democrat  from Iowa City, puts that more judiciously.

“This is a legal nuance that I guess the court’s going to look at,” Bolkcom says.  “I'm disappointed that we continue to litigate around Obamacare and whether all Americans deserve access to health care.”

Tom Miller says if the suit succeeds, Iowa has one clear option, which is to create its own state exchange like 16 other states have done.

“Then people would be covered,” Miller says.  

But two years ago the legislature rejected a state-run exchange at Governor Branstad’s urging.   And his    spokesman Jimmy Centers says hastily putting a state exchange together now in reaction to a court ruling would be a bad idea.

“ Certainly Iowans could be affected by a court decision,” Centers says, “but what we are already seeing is that the burdensome regulations and government red tape set up by Obamacare is increasing costs for those seeking health care in Iowa.” 

But Senator Bolkcom says establishing a state-run exchange for Iowa is a no-brainer.

“ We can not be the healthiest state in the country under the healthiest  state initiative,” “if we have tens of thousands of people without health insurance.”

In the meantime, Iowa Insurance commissioner Nick Gerhart says the 2015 open enrollment period for the federal exchange will begin as planned this weekend.   

“I work with what I know today,” Gerhart says, “and I don’t project what will happen.  Right now today when people go to enroll beginning Saturday there are tax credits.”

And Gerhart says the delay  to know the future of those  tax credits may not be too long.    Oral arguments in the suit are scheduled for March.   A decision is expected in June.