national watch
As the Court Turns
Will the Supreme Court uphold Obamacare, strike
down part of it, or overturn it completely?
Jason Hagey
Everyone from legal experts to health insurance industry officials
are watching for the high court’s ruling on the federal law. AWB’s
health care policy expert isn’t waiting until June to prepare for the
outcome and what it will mean for employers and businesses.
If this, then that.
The flowchart of possible outcomes from the
Supreme Court health care challenge may seem as
complex as a wiring diagram, but interests on all
— CNN Senior Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin, commenting after the second day
sides of the issue are busy preparing for the variety
of possible outcomes.
of oral arguments before the Supreme Court
The high court, which is due to rule on the case
in June, could uphold the law, as President Barack
Obama believes it will; it could strike down a portion of it known as the individual mandate, as Washington state Attorney General Rob McKenna has predicted; or it could rule the entire law unconstitutional,
as AWB and other business organizations have advocated.
Each of those options could trigger a different response from Washington state lawmakers, and those
responses could change depending on yet another variable: the outcome of this fall’s elections.
If Washington voters elect a Republican majority in either the House or the Senate, and
they elect McKenna as the state’s first Republican governor in more than 30 years, expect the
response to any of the court decisions to be considerably different than if Democrats — who
at a glance
helped craft the health care law and are working to quickly implement it at the state level —
retain control of the governor’s mansion and the Capitol.
The Supreme Court is due to rule
Consider that state Sen. Karen Keiser, D-Kent, is leading a national group that’s already
in June on the constitutionality of
developing a plan B in case the court strikes down the individual mandate. One of the options
the Patient Protection and Affordunder consideration by the group is for the states to impose their own mandates that individuable Care Act, better known as
als buy insurance.
Obamacare.
Donna Steward, AWB’s government affairs director for health care, is watching all of this
with clos