The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA) has spawned many constitutional challenges, and a flood of legal advisory work.
Lawyers have filled the Web with guides explaining the terrors that could face employers, insurers, benefit plan administrators and brokers that fail to get PPACA-related paperwork right.
But, at this point, the flow of litigation resulting from the effects of PPACA as a law, as opposed to efforts by PPACA opponents to kill the law, seems light.
Andrew Struve, a partner at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips LLP, gave that assessment last week in an interview. Other Manatt lawyers have been helping states set up and run state-based public exchanges. Struve himself is co-chair of the firm's health care litigation practice. He monitors filings of new PPACA court cases closely.
Up till now, "we haven't seen that much private litigation surrounding implementation difficulties," Struve said. "I would have anticipated a lot more litigation."
Struve said he has not seen much PPACA-related operational litigation, either.
Consumers may be filing occasional suits involving questions about whether they are receiving the services they are supposed to be receiving, but the tight new PPACA limits on individual coverage medical underwriting have eliminated most suits involving questions about medical underwriting, Struve said.
