Health insurance alternatives

It looks like the Trump Court will hear the suit against the ACA with a full pack of conservative justices. That means it will be overturned (even if one conservative judge defects, that's still a 5-4 loss). I have serious questions about the immediate consequences.

1. Assuming it is overturned in its entirety (as the Republicans want, rather than invalidating one clause), how soon will people be hurled off the ACA healthcare exchanges? Immediately? Or will there be a grace period, at least? Some people depend on the ACA to stay alive, on a daily basis. Will they have time to find some other coverage somewhere?

2. Assumption #1: We win the White House and the Senate. Then Democrats can pass a new version of the ACA (call it the "Awesome Care Act," or ACA2, which would be largely immune to court challenges). How long would that take? How long would people be without health care?

3. Assumption #2: We win the White House but not the Senate. Would there be anything that Biden could do in conjunction with the House? Or would everybody be screwed?

4. Assumption #3: We lose the White House, but win the Senate. Of course, Trump has no bigly health plan, and won't bother to even make a gesture of creating one. Could the Senate do anything?

5. Assumption #4: We lose the White House and the Senate. The dark times continue. Millions of people die for lack of health care. Fortunately, this nightmare scenario is pretty unlikely.

California recently announced that it will pick up the tab for Medicaid and ACA-insured patients if their health care is lost. Oregon officials have said so as well, albeit informally. That was, however, before the pandemic and the massive drop in state tax revenues, coupled with high unemployment insurance expenditures, gutted state budgets. I doubt that either state can do that now, though Oregon had a $5 billion "rainy day fund" before the pandemic hit and has only spent half of it. I don't know how much of a reserve California has, but it's a pretty wealthy state.

Another thing I think we'd all like to know is if Covid will be considered a "preexisting condition" and anyone who has recovered from it will be denied health insurance coverage. I can easily see how people might refuse to get tested for fear of testing positive and losing their health insurance when SCOTUS destroys the ACA!

More "scare" tactics from Kevin, based on his twisted logic and speculation. A page out of the Lying Liberal Handbook.

Republicans dont want to overturn Obamacre or Roe-Wade.  They just want to tell their hard-core base they do because thats how they raise money.

Achieving either of those objectives is a massive political blunder as the overwhelming majority of the country support them.   

In short -  the fight is more politically beneficial than the victory.    The Supreme Court will bail out Republicans on both fronts.   

Really?

Well, PJ, despite what Stalker says, what I predicted is very likely to happen, based on the simple fact that destroying the ACA has been a sacred Republican objective for ten years and they've tried every trick in the book to accomplish that. It's within their grasp now and they know that when Trump loses, they're not going to have another chance.

If anything, I was understating the impact of the repeal of the ACA. When twenty million+ people lose their health care, some of them will die. Others will be sick, injured, etc. without having access to care. Mothers giving birth will not have access to prenatal or birth care. Some babies will die in childbirth. Interesting that the conservative crowd loves fetuses but not babies!

I wish I agreed with you on what the Court will actually do when push comes to shove, but consider that the Republicans are already massively unpopular due to their attempts to destroy America, their support of a traitor, and their legs-wide-open acquiescence to everything that traitor tries. Can they sink any lower in popularity? At this point, only the deplorables are Republicans.

So I think they'll say, "in for a penny, in for a pound" and make sure SCOTUS destroys those two laws. They would prefer to go out with a bang, not a whimper. They know that twenty years from now, there won't even BE a Republican party.

And BTW: the die is cast. Those cases WILL be heard--and the Court WILL rule on them. So what the Republicans want is moot at this point anyway--the conservatives on the Court have been slavering for this opportunity for literally decades, and Trump's new Nazi girl is eager to validate her conservative chops. They'll go all 1950s on America, because they can, and they want to.

 Kevin Lewis opines:"They'll go all 1950s on America, because they can, and they want to."  

The 1950's were a pleasant, carefree time for little DonDiego.  But kindergarten was kind of an unexpected shock, . . . poor little DonDiego preferred playing all day long over attending school.

And pleasant for others too: The 1950s.

"The booming prosperity of the 1950s helped to create a widespread sense of stability, contentment and consensus in the United States. However, that consensus was a fragile one, and it splintered for good during the tumultuous 1960s."

Medger Evers had a different experience with the 1950's than Don Diego.  

Everybody smoked (at least it seemed that way). Poor people had no access to health care. Children contracted polio, for which there was no cure. Poverty and racism were rampant. And we fought three wars.

I do realize that many old white Trumpers regard that period as heaven on earth, but one's opinion might be different if one wasn't white and/or was poor.

And BTW that "consensus" didn't exist in any way, shape, or form--it's just that those who weren't in the dominant social and racial classes had no voice.