Attorney: King v Burwell ruling kind of a 'non-event'

Now that the dust has settled on the King v. Burwell Supreme Court ruling that upheld federal subsidies in states that do not operate their own health insurance exchanges, it seems as if the Affordable Care Act is here to stay in its current form.

There have been few surprises in all the statements, tweets and other unsolicited opinions spread across the Internet today, though, as MedCity News reported, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf said that he would withdraw his state’s application to establish a state-run exchange.

Wolf’s move, actually, did not come as a surprise to a Pennsylvania lawyer, Brian Pinheiro, leader of the employee benefits group at Ballard Spahr in Philadelphia. Nor was the court’s decision much of a shocker.

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“It’s a little bit of a non-event,” Pinheiro told MedCity News. “This ruling doesn’t really affect what anybody else is doing.”

King v. Burwell represents just about the last remaining shot for ACA opponents to undo President Obama’s signature law, at least before Obama leaves office in January 2017.

Pinheiro said that there are maybe one or two pending challenges to Obamacare in federal district courts, but he does not expect those to get very far. There are a few other cases from religious interests opposed to the mandate that health plans cover contraception, he added, but those are targeting one specific provision that would not in itself kill the whole law if it were struck down.

“I don’t think there’s anything out there really challenging the core of the ACA,” Pinheiro said.