Indiana: ‘The Let ‘Em Die’ State?
Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller is suing the IRS. It seems he’s all hot under the collar about the agency’s authority to subsidize the Affordable Care Act’s insurance subsidy structure.
Zoeller claims that the health law doesn’t permit people living in the 36 states that have refused to set up their own Obamacare marketplaces — including Indiana — to qualify for federal insurance subsidies. He also says that local government employers which don’t meet Obamacare’s requirements cannot be penalized under the law to help fund those subsidies.
The argument is based on a technical ambiguity in the law that state-level GOP officials and congressional Republicans have previously seized on in an attempt to undermine the ACA’s consumer assistance. The IRS has issued regulations saying that the law permits and intends the agency to extend subsidies to Americans in all 50 states. …
If the lawsuit is successful, it would amount to a massive premium hike for Americans who are required to procure insurance coverage under the health law — and could fundamentally cripple Obamacare’s goal of extending affordable health coverage to the uninsured.
In other words, if you’re poor and can’t afford insurance, Indiana’s policy is, to quote Alan Grayson, “please die, and die quickly.”
Welcome to Indiana, the “let ’em die” state.
