Last week, Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg pondered if the Supreme Court were to strike down the individual responsibility provision of the Affordable Care Act, if the court should be on a “wrecking” operation or a “salvage” operation.
Hopefully, neither will be necessary by the court. But if the court were to go down this radical road, what would Congress do? Given their current gridlock, what would California do?
The San Jose Mercury News spotlighted the potential loss of millions of dollars for Low-Income Health Programs, and in 2014, the Medicaid expansion that could cover around 2 million Californians.
It’s just one example of the potential loss of tools, standards, and resources that California would lose. Make no mistake, the California health system can’t go back to the status quo, which was simply unsustainable. And the political will is there for California to move without the rest of the nation: We were pleased to see that both the Sacramento Bee and the Los Angeles Times have stories quoting state leaders like HHS Secretary Diana Dooley, Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, and Assembly Health Committee Chair Bill Monning, on the need to move forward.
With the law intact, there’s a path forward, daunting as the implementation challenges are. It will be harder, depending on how much gets struck down. More to come…