President Obama will defend his embattled health care law in a speech today before the Catholic Health Association, declaring that it’s now a “reality” for millions of Americans.
The speech comes as the Supreme Court is poised to rule decide later this month whether consumers in the 34 states that use the federal health insurance marketplace can continue to receive subsidies to help them purchase coverage.
“Five years in, what we’re talking about is no longer just a law,” Obama is to say. “This isn’t about the Affordable Care Act. This isn’t about Obamacare. This isn’t about myths or rumors that won’t go away.”
To bolster its case, the White House released updated data and state by state data that it says shows that more than 16 million are now covered.
“There are outcomes we can calculate – the number of newly insured families, the number of lives saved,” Obama will say at the speech. “And those numbers add up to success.”
If the court rules for the government, HealthCare.gov users can continue to receive financial assistance and the Affordable Care Act will have survived its second major Supreme Court challenge in the last three years.
But chaos will ensue if the court agrees with the plaintiffs that the tax credits can go only to people in the 16 states, along with Washington, D.C., that run their own insurance marketplaces.
That outcome could leave 6.4 million people in 34 states with no financial help to pay for health insurance coverage, which is required by law.