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Professors Baker and Hoffman examine the effects of the Affordable Care Act

November 02, 2015

There are more health insurance companies participating in the health insurance market as a result of the affordable care act, said Prof....
“There are more health insurance companies participating in the health insurance market as a result of the affordable care act,” said Prof. Tom Baker.
Penn Law’s Bioethics Society hosted a panel with professors Tom Baker and Allison Hoffman to discuss the realities versus the expectations of the Affordable Care Act.

By Maria Biery C’18

On October 28, Penn Law’s Bioethics Society hosted a panel with professors Tom Baker and Allison Hoffman to discuss the realities versus the expectations of the Affordable Care Act. The consensus reached by the two panelists was that the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, will not reach the goals that the administration and Congress originally set out, but it is — ultimately — here to stay.

Baker is a scholar of insurance law and Penn Law’s William Maul Measey Professor of Law and Health Sciences. Hoffman is a Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law, where she studies health care law and policy, and she is currently a visiting professor at Penn Law.

“The initial projections were that 30 million more people would be covered by 2020,” said Hoffman, “and I’m pretty certain we’re not going to get to that number.” Hoffman and Baker attributed this to the fact that the implementation of the federal health exchanges had such a rough start, and some states have still not set up a federal health exchange.

Baker, however, noted that, “Although [the exchanges] did get off to a rough start, they all worked in the end sufficiently so people could enroll.” He also commented on the success of the law saying, “There are more health insurance companies participating in the health insurance market as a result of the affordable care act.”

In order for this competition and transparency to work there needs to be competition,” he added, “and if there’s more insurers entering the market, that’s success.”

The professors also talked about the expansion of Medicaid that is part of the Affordable Care Act, and the expectations versus the realities of that part of the law.

Professor Hoffman explained that there is actually no penalty for states if they choose not to expand Medicaid. This is due to the fact that the penalty for not expanding is in another piece of the Medicaid section of the law. The courts decided to “sever” the penalty for not expanding Medicaid — so that the effect of the court’s ruling is “either you expand or you don’t.” 

Despite the law not being able to meet the expectations that Congress and the Obama administration originally set out and the lack of penalties for states that do not expand Medicaid, Hoffman and Baker believe that no fundamental changes to the law will take place even if the next presidential administration fundamentally disagrees with the Affordable Care Act.

“The law has become embedded in ways that would be pretty hard to unravel,” said Hoffman. She also pointed out that it is more likely that, if a Republican administration takes the White House, there will be defunded pieces of the law and smaller changes to parts of the law.