Notice & Comment

Author: Nicholas Bagley

Notice & Comment

Registering voters through HealthCare.gov

In an open letter, a coalition of voting rights advocates has accused the Obama administration of breaking the law by failing to use the federal exchanges—those run through HealthCare.gov—to help people register to vote. I don’t think that’s right, but the letter nonetheless raises an important question: Even if it’s not legally mandated, why shouldn’t […]

Notice & Comment

You want to know how bad Medicare is at paying for drugs?

Consider DuoNeb, which is used to treat chronic lung disease. The drug is nothing fancy: it’s just a combination of two cheap and widely available drugs—albuterol and ipratropium. You can pop DuoNeb in a nebulizer and administer both drugs at once. Or you can administer the two drugs separately. Apart from mild inconvenience, there’s no […]

Notice & Comment

An immediate appeal in House v. Burwell?

The Obama administration has filed a motion in House v. Burwell asking the district court for permission to take an immediate appeal of its decision allowing the case to proceed. Among other things, the administration argues that allowing the House to sue over an alleged violation of the Appropriations Clause is “a momentous step” that […]

Notice & Comment

Pushing back on exorbitant drug prices

The Center for American Progress has released a report that includes an arresting suggestion for controlling the prices of prescription drugs. Under the Bayh-Dole Act, in certain circumstances, the federal government may exercise its “march-in rights” to license patents that resulted from federally funded research but that are now owned by drug companies. These rights […]

Notice & Comment

Oh boy. Here we go again

A district court in Washington, DC ruled Wednesday that the House of Representatives has standing to bring a lawsuit alleging that the Obama administration is spending federal money to finance the ACA, absent a congressional appropriation. As I’ve explained , the stakes of the lawsuit are high—not as high as King v. Burwell, but nothing […]

Notice & Comment

What happens if the House wins its ACA lawsuit?

Sarah Kliff has a nice explainer at Vox about how the House’s lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act could get some traction. As I’ve said before, the case should be dismissed for want of standing, and I suspect that it eventually will be—if not by the district court, then on appeal. But what if the […]

Notice & Comment

The House’s ACA lawsuit should be dismissed

Walter Dellinger, a former Solicitor General of the United States, has a compelling op-ed in the Washington Post about House of Representatives v. Burwell, the latest effort to maim the ACA in the courts. Read it. He makes a quick, convincing case for why the House lacks standing to sue. ( I made a similar […]

Notice & Comment

Can Vermont ask its employers about health-care prices?

It was easy to overlook in the hubbub over the end-of-term cases, but the Supreme Court yesterday morning agreed to hear Gobeille v. Liberty Mutual, a case with significant implications for the states’ authority over the health-care sector. At issue in the case is whether Vermont can force health insurers—including employers that self-insure—to tell state […]

Notice & Comment

​Did the Court tip its hand about King?

Last Monday, the Supreme Court decided Baker Botts v. ASARCO, a bankruptcy case about whether certain kinds of attorneys’ fees are available under the Bankruptcy Code. In deciding the case, did the Court tip its hand about the outcome in King v. Burwell, as some have speculated? Perhaps. On behalf of a six-justice majority, for […]

Notice & Comment

On Timing and King

Since I’ve received a number of questions recently about the timing of King v. Burwell and its aftermath, I thought it was worth addressing them all in one place. When will we get a decision? The Court is likely to release its opinion in the last week of June. A decision could come sooner, but […]

Notice & Comment

Is block granting Medicaid unconstitutional?

Sara Rosenbaum and Tim Westmoreland have an interesting new piece out at the New England Journal of Medicine on the Patient CARE Act, a Republican proposal to transform Medicaid into a block grant program (among other things). Not only is the Patient CARE Act bad policy, they argue, but the move to block granting could […]

Notice & Comment

How to Keep the Subsidies Flowing in a Handful of States

I’ve been toying with an idea that might allow the Obama administration, in the event that it loses in King v. Burwell, to keep subsidies flowing to residents in some of the 34 states that declined to create an exchange. What if HHS declared that any state that performs substantial, ongoing, and essential exchange functions […]

Notice & Comment

The Senate’s Proposed King Fix is Flawed

If the government loses in King v. Burwell, Congress will come under intense pressure to restore insurance subsidies in the 34 states that refused to set up their own exchanges. Anticipating the tricky post-King politics, Senate Republicans appear to have coalesced around a bill crafted by Senator Johnson that would extend subsidies through 2017 to […]