(Bloomberg) — A U.S. Supreme Court argument over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) premium tax credit system divided the justices along ideological lines, potentially leaving two pivotal members to decide the law's fate.
Chief Justice John Roberts, who cast the decisive vote to uphold PPACA's individual coverage mandate penalty in 2012, asked only a handful of questions and gave little indication how he will vote on the case, King vs. Burwell (Case Number 14-114).
Justice Anthony Kennedy, who voted to invalidate the statute three years ago, asked questions of both sides in the one-hour, 20-minute hearing. He said limiting access to the tax credits to 16 states — to states with PPACA exchanges established by the states, rather than the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) — would create a "serious constitutional problem."
A decision halting the credits in the states with HHS exchanges might unravel the core PPACA commercial health insurance market provisions, potentially causing the market for individual insurance policies to collapse in much of the country. Hospitals could be left with billions of dollars in unpaid bills.
The King vs. Burwell fight centers on a four-word phrase that has become a linchpin of the law. Challengers say that phrase limits the tax credits to the 16 states that have set up their own marketplaces, or online exchanges, for people to buy insurance.
Wall Street has viewed an Obama administration loss on King vs. Burwell as a major threat to hospital stocks.
See also: 3 things hospitals are saying about PPACA.
After the King vs. Burwell oral arguments, hospitals rose more than all other stocks on the Standard & Poor's 500 Index on Wednesday, as of 12:12 p.m. in New York. Tenet Healthcare Corp. (NYSE:THC) was up 5.1 percent to $49.45, and HCA Holdings Inc. (NYSE:HCA) rose 6.5 percent to $75.38. Community Health Systems Inc. (NYSE:CYH) advanced 5.4 percent to $52.28.
Kennedy raised the possibility that the court would have to allow nationwide subsidies to avoid trammeling the rights of the states, which he said would face a choice between setting up their own exchanges or seeing their insurance markets collapse. Kennedy mentioned the legal doctrine of "constitutional avoidance," under which the court tries to interpret statutes so as not to render them unconstitutional.
More natural
At the same time, Kennedy indicated he saw the challengers' reading of the law as the more natural one.
"It may well be that you're correct as to the words," he told Michael Carvin, the lawyer representing four Virginians seeking to block the subsidies.
