Almost 300 members of Leadership Health Care and the Nashville Health Care Council recently attended a panel discussion regarding the outcome and impact likely to result from the Supreme Court's examination of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
The Court will hear testimony on the bill from March 26th to the 28th as it seeks to answer several questions about the law. Despite the fact that it was passed two years ago, many important provisions of the PPACA have not yet begun to take effect, although others have already made a significant impact on the insurance industry.
Among these is the measure that requires health insurance policies for adults to extend coverage to their adult children younger than 26 years old, affecting employee benefits. That change makes policies more expensive for some, but has also succeeded in helping to extend coverage to millions of Americans, particularly minorities, in an age group that has traditionally been underinsured.
"The highly anticipated Supreme Court decision on health reform is much more than a legal opinion, it’s a defining event in the health care marketplace," said panel moderator Dick Cowart, chairman of the Health Law & Public Policy Department at a law firm, according to LifeHealthPro.
At the heart of the matter is the individual healthcare mandate, a provision that will require people to buy health insurance coverage once implemented. Supporters of the PPACA have argued that it will lower costs for everyone by adding to the insurance pool.
The Court will assess whether or not the provision is constitutional, and also determine if the rest of the PPACA can stand without it. Those opposed to the law have stated that, if the individual mandate exceeds the federal government's powers, the rest of the PPACA is unconstitutional as well. Additionally, the Court must decide whether it can rule on these questions yet, given that the provision does not go into effect until 2014. Finally, the justices will examine the Medicaid requirements for states included in the law.
Panelist Paul Heldman, a senior health policy analyst at the Potomac Research Group, said that the loss of the individual mandate would severely hinder the law's effectiveness. Adding to the pool of insured may be a necessity if coverage providers are to comply with the law's requirements, and striking down the provision "could destabilize the insurance market and negatively impact providers who might be exposed to increased bad debt," according to Heldman. The other panelists agreed that the decision will play a major part in shaping the healthcare sector.
