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The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is
published every Thursday during the
spring and summer terms by students
at the University of Michigan. One copy
is available free of charge to all readers.
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2
Thursday, July 9, 2015
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
NEWS
University experts
react to Affordable
Care Act decision
Supreme Court
ruling garners
generally positive
University response
By IRENE PARK
Daily Staff Reporter
In wake of the Supreme
Court’s 6-3 decision to uphold
a key component of the Afford-
able Care Act on June 25th,
several
University
experts
have shared their generally
positive thoughts on the rul-
ing.
The court’s ruling confirms
that
qualified
Americans
will receive health insurance
tax subsidies when they buy
their insurance from a federal
exchange marketplace.
The question before the
court was whether individu-
als
could
purchase
health
insurance
on
the
federal
exchange
marketplace
and
receive taxpayer subsidies, as
the act states that subsidies
would be available only to
those who purchase insurance
on
exchange
marketplaces
“established by the state.”
The court agreed the only
way the ACA would work is
for federal exchange mar-
ketplaces to be established
for states without their own
marketplaces to buy the insur-
ance. Furthermore, the court
ruled that individuals who
buy their insurance via federal
exchanges should receive tax
subsidies.
Chief Justice John G. Rob-
erts Jr. wrote in the majority
opinion that Congress’ inten-
tion was to improve health
insurance.
“Congress
passed
the
Affordable Care Act to improve
health insurance markets, not
to destroy them. If at all pos-
sible we must interpret the Act
in a way that is consistent with
the former, and avoids the lat-
ter,” Roberts wrote.
In his dissent, Justice Sca-
lia voiced his concern that
the Supreme Court is rewrit-
ing laws and preferentially
upholding certain laws.
“This Court, however, con-
cludes that this limitation
would prevent the rest of the
Act from working as well as
hoped,” Justice Scalia wrote.
“So it rewrites the law to make
tax credits available every-
where. We should start calling
this law SCOTUScare.”
Assistant Law Prof. Nicho-
las Bagley responded to Sca-
lia’s dissent in the Los Angeles
Times. He wrote that the court
ruling did not rewrite the law,
but rather read the law as a
whole.
“It’s just that reading the
law as a whole — keeping in
mind what it aims to accom-
plish and how it goes about
accomplishing it — is the right
way to figure out what those
words mean, not blinkered lit-
eralism,” Bagley said. “As the
chief justice rightly appreci-
ated, the broader statutory
context thus confirmed that
Congress could not have meant
what, taken out of context, it
seems to have said. That’s not
rewriting the law. That’s read-
ing it.”
A. Mark Fendrick, Univer-
sity professor in the depart-
ment of Internal Medicine
and the department of Health
Management and Policy, said
the court ruling allows people
who are taking advantage of
the healthcare system under
the ACA to still receive tax
subsidies, but did not neces-
sarily make the health insur-
ance system better.
“The
court
ruling
kept
things the same,” Fendrick
said. “It’s not like people got
anything better by the court
ruling. What we did in my
opinion is that we avoided a
near disaster.”
Fendrick added the ACA has
room for improvement, par-
ticularly in ensuring patients
get high-quality services for
what they are paying for their
health insurance.
“We still need to appreciate
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Ann Arbor residents celebrate America’s Birthday at the 25th annual Fourth of
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4TH OF J ULY FESTIVITIES
See ACA, Page 3