USA: How will the affordable care act affect you?
By Lisa Scherzer
Monday
the Supreme
Court began hearing three days of arguments as to the constitutionality of
several provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), passed two years ago
this month.
- The Anti-Injunction Act: Should the legality of the
individual mandate -- which requires nearly all Americans without coverage
to buy individual health insurance policies or pay a fine – even be considered
now? Or must the case be deferred until 2015 because of the 1867
Anti-Injunction Act, which says taxpayers can’t challenge a levy's
legality before they actually pay the tax?
- Next come arguments about what many consider the
central issue: Does Congress have the authority to require people to buy
health insurance?
- If the Court declares the individual mandate
unconstitutional, what happens to the law’s hundreds of other provisions?
Do they all become invalid, or are some of them “severable”?
- Does the law's expansion of Medicaid (which would cover
many more poor people) violate states’ sovereignty by requiring them to
spend more of their own money or forfeit all of the federal Medicaid money
they now get?
·
Assuming
the Court allows the law to stand as it is now, here’s a review of how a
variety of people could be (and, in some cases, already are) affected by the
health-care overhaul:
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