MEMPHIS REACTS: HEALTH CARE SUBSIDIES

“The Supreme Court’s ruling today provides muchneeded clarity for health care providers and patients in Tennessee ... We can now all move forward with a continued focus on increasing access, delivering quality care and improving patient health.”

Dr. John W. Hale Jr.,

family physician in Union City and president of the Tennessee Medical Association “I think it’s wonderful. I am so happy that it went through like that. I really didn’t believe that they were going to do anything to it anyway, because there’s too many people depending on that now. So I kind of believed what happened today was going to happen.”

Betty Thomas,

65, a retired Methodist University Hospital secretary whose husband, Barry, a 64-year-old retiree, is covered by a subsidized health plan that costs the South Memphis couple about $72 a month “If the subsidies in federally run exchanges had been eliminated, millions of people in the U.S. (over 100,000 in the Mid-South), would have lost the insurance coverage that they recently gained. However, there are still issues that need to be addressed in the market, including getting more healthy people to sign up. I believe that this ruling should also create another opportunity to revisit Governor Haslam’s Insure Tennessee plan, which is designed to help those who are not eligible for subsidies to receive TennCare or a private insurance plan.”

Paige Powell,

University of Memphis assistant professor of health systems management and policy “What it means is that, first of all, all the chaos that would have happened if they had made the other decision is not going to happen. So if you’re somebody getting individual coverage, that’s good, they’re going to be able to keep their coverage. It also means though that other major aspects of the law are going to stay in place, so some people may not feel that this is such a great thing. So if you’re an employer, especially a larger employer, you’re still going to have to contend with the employer mandate and all the things that come about with that. If you are an individual that has individual coverage, but you don’t qualify for subsidies, then you’re going to have to deal with the higher prices.”

Chuck Hudspeth,

Memphis insurance agent known as the “Obamacare Answer Man” at Hudspeth Benefits Group