Opinion: Health Reform's Legal Challenge Lacks Any Merit

(Oct. 15) -- One minute, Christina Turner was enjoying drinks at a Fort Lauderdale bar with some men she'd recently met. The next minute, she woke up on a roadside covered with cuts and bruises indicating that she'd been raped.

And this drug-assisted assault was only the beginning of Christina's nightmare. Months later, she lost her health insurance and was unable to obtain new coverage because the anti-AIDS medication given to sexual assault victims branded her with a pre-existing condition.

Christina is not alone.

Nearly 60 million other Americans have also been branded with pre-existing conditions because of sicknesses -- such as cancer, diabetes or heart disease -- pregnancy and sometimes even abuse. And after someone is branded with a pre-existing condition, that person risks being unable to obtain health insurance and having the next trip to the doctor end in bankruptcy.

There is good news looming on the horizon -- in 2014, the Affordable Care Act guarantees that no American can be denied coverage because of health status. But this basic right is under fire in a Florida federal courtroom thanks to politicians playing games with people's lives.

Let's be clear: This lawsuit is wholly without merit. It's a partisan attempt to repeal health reform that, if successful, will drive up costs for those who need coverage the most.

For the millions of Americans with pre-existing conditions, every illness is a potential brush with economic ruin, so the new law is as much a financial lifeline as it is a lifesaver. And those with pre-existing conditions who are fortunate to be covered through their jobs must pay a price too: forgoing opportunities to start a business, join a smaller company or take other jobs for fear of losing coverage.

Everyone else pays, too, since the uninsured are far more likely to seek expensive emergency room treatment, passing the costs onto the rest of us.

So, while the benefits of this new law are immense, they do come with one small cost -- a requirement that nearly all Americans either carry health insurance or pay slightly higher income taxes. Though it's tempting to think that the country can enjoy the benefits of the new law without having to pay this small price, the reality is quite different.

Auto insurers, for example, won't let you take out a new policy on a car you just wrecked, and for good reason. Car insurance only works when a large number of people pay into the system, generating a pool of money that the small number of people with wrecked cars can tap into. If someone who hasn't paid into the pool is allowed to take money out of it, there soon won't be any money left for the people who paid their premiums all along.

The same thing is true about health insurance. If patients can put off buying insurance until the moment they get sick -- knowing that they are guaranteed coverage -- then they will drain the insurance pools dry before anyone who has actually paid into the system can touch them.

This is why preventing insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions has to be coupled with a requirement for people to buy coverage.

Lest there be any doubt, there is nothing in the new law that requires people to buy insurance they cannot afford. Most Americans who do not already get insurance through their employers will receive financial assistance to help them pay for coverage. Those would face financial hardship are exempt from the new requirement. Indeed, the law is carefully designed so that the new requirement targets those who can afford insurance but choose instead to risk economic catastrophe.

Thus, this requirement is a negligible price to pay for the guarantee that everyone has access to affordable health care.

By targeting this requirement in court, Republicans risk bringing down the entire reform plan, keeping all the Christina Turners of the country at the mercy of a fundamentally flawed insurance market.


ANOTHER VIEW: Who's to Blame for Health Reform's Legal Troubles? -- John S. Baker Jr.