One of the key components of ObamaCare are the health insurance exchanges . . ..
The coverage will be expensive, and so ObamaCare includes hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars in subsidies. . . .
But the legislation also includes a safe harbor: Individuals must have access to “affordable” coverage. If a person has to spend more than 8 percent of his income to get coverage, he is exempted from the mandate. And if a worker is exempted from the mandate to have coverage, his employer is exempted from the $2,000 penalty ($3,000 in some cases) for not providing health coverage.
Under the law states are given three exchange options. States could create the exchange, enter a partnership with the federal government, or, if a state does nothing, the federal government will create the exchange and impose it on the state.
The liberals writing the law assumed the vast majority of states would create their own exchange. But just to make sure, they included a “carrot” that clearly says that the federal subsidies are available ONLY in the state-created exchanges, not in the federal-state partnerships or the federally created exchanges.
However, 34 states have decided not to play the ObamaCare game and opted for a federally created exchange or the partnership, which means the federal subsidies will not be available to millions of middle- and lower-income workers in those states.
And without the subsidies, insurance would become “unaffordable” under ObamaCare for the vast majority of those families. They would thus be exempted from the mandate to have coverage, and their employers would be exempted from the penalty for not providing it.
In other words, the most draconian part of ObamaCare would essentially be defunded. Bingo!
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
