Obama Legacy Hinges on Health Care Ruling

President Obama’s “prospects for a legacy of expanding health care coverage in the United States for generations have never seemed as uncertain as they do today. The Supreme Court is expected to rule by the end of the month on a critical provision of the Affordable Care Act — insurance subsidies for millions of Americans — and even Mr. Obama’s closest allies say that a decision to invalidate the subsidies would mean years of logistical and political chaos,” the New York Times reports.

“In the Supreme Court case, King v. Burwell, conservatives have challenged the federal government’s right to subsidize premiums for people who signed up for insurance through a federally run health marketplace. If the government loses, more than 6.4 million of those policy holders could see their premiums triple, or worse. Insurance companies could abandon marketplaces across the country. Mr. Obama’s attempt to engineer a private-sector solution to the country’s health insurance crisis could all but collapse.”