On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard arguments on the individual
mandate provision in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). This provision
requires people to purchase health insurance or pay a penalty.
Coupled with the individual mandate requirement is a series of
patient protections, including an end to life-time limits,
preexisting exclusion limits, and community rating and guaranteed
issue requirements.
Many patient groups support the individual mandate, as it
provides an opportunity for patients to purchase affordable health
care. If the individual mandate is struck down – the
community rating and guaranteed issue provisions likely will go
down with it; as such, many patients will no longer have avenues to
purchase affordable health insurance. For the insurance companies,
they agreed to those insurance market reforms (community rating and
guaranteed issue) in exchange for an assurance that everyone would
be in the insurance pool vis-a-vis a requirement to have
