Health care costs continue to rise and the number of people who are uninsured or underinsured is following a similar, if steeper, trajectory.
That’s why were pleased to see last week that the Supreme Court will rule on challenges to the 2010 Affordable Care Act and issue an opinion next summer.
The U.S. needs to expand care to the uninsured and work to rein in health care costs. A court ruling will provide significant answers as to whether “Obamacare” is the vehicle to make it happen.
If the court tosses it out — which, based on our reading of the legal tea leaves, seems unlikely — then Americans will have four months before the 2012 elections to debate how to address the health care crisis and which candidates are best suited to do it.
If the court upholds the law, we can get about the business of implementing its key provisions and making it better. (Republicans on the campaign trail are promising to overturn it, but it’s hard to see that as a realistic possibility).
As the case has made its way through the lower courts, the need for action has grown.
According to a study released last week by the Colorado Trust and the Colorado Health Institute, 829,000 Coloradans are uninsured. That’s a 22 percent increase since 2009.
Further troubling is the number of “underinsured,” defined as people who have insurance but spend more than 10 percent of their income on co-pays or uncovered procedures and prescription drugs. The survey put that population at 675,000.
Put in stark but simple terms: 1 in 3 Coloradans is either uninsured or underinsured.
Then there are cost increases for those who are fully insured, which hit both businesses and their employees. Premiums are going up an average of 9.4 percent in the state next year. That follows increases of 14.4 percent this year and 11.8 percent in 2010, according to a recent benefits analysis.
We don’t think the Affordable Care Act went far enough in cost-containment, but it’s a start. That’s why we take some comfort in the fact that the court will weigh in.
While much of their attention will focus on whether or not the government can mandate people to buy insurance — a provision needed in order to mandate that insurers cover people with pre-existing conditions — that won’t be the extent of the court’s review. Justices will also have to determine whether that provision can be “severed” from the law, or if the entire thing should be tossed out.
They will also look at a challenge of how the law extends Medicaid to provide coverage for more poor people and reduce the ranks of the uninsured.
Their review can’t come soon enough.
