Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell
Back in December, House Republicans wrote to Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell,
demanding to know how the Obama administration was going to bail out Republicans if the Supreme Court grants their wish and guts Obamacare in
King v. Burwell. Burwell has responded, making it
abundantly clear that there is no administrative fix for lost subsidies if the court rules for the plaintiffs. She also made it abundantly clear that a decision for Republicans and against the law
will dramatically hurt millions, particularly the poor.
Her statement, in a letter to Congress, puts pressure on the court to rule in favor of the administration. The implicit message is that the White House has no contingency plans, so if the court strikes down subsidies, the justices will be responsible for causing hardship to lower-income people and chaos in insurance markets around the country. […]
Ms. Burwell painted a dire picture of what would happen if the court ruled against her. "Millions of people would lose their health insurance subsidies and therefore would no longer be able to afford health insurance," she said. "Second, without tax subsidies, healthy individuals would be far less likely to purchase health insurance, leaving a disproportionate number of sick individuals in the individual insurance market, which would raise the costs for everyone else."
While Republicans have been
working hard to create a "blame Obama" for the potential destruction of Obamacare by the court, at their behest, Burwell is passing the buck right back to them. But it's worth pointing out that Republicans—in the midst of a potential partial government shutdown over what they say is executive overreach—are asking the Obama administration to overreach on fixing the mess they've created. A mess that is resulting from a lawsuit over, you got it, executive branch overreach on Obamacare.
