After hearing oral arguments regarding the constitutionality of health care reform's individual mandate, the Supreme Court justices are to decide whether the bill should be left alone, partially overturned or struck down in its entirety, says Jennifer Kraft, partner at national employment law firm Seyfarth Shaw in Chicago.
If the Supreme Court rules that the individual mandate is unconstitutional but leaves the rest of the bill intact, this could negatively impact employers, Kraft says. By overturning only part of the bill, an unbalanced system would be left functioning as it was not designed, which could create even more problems. This is especially true for employers that decide to move to the exchange system in 2014 because fewer participants would be in the market for health insurance.
"You won't have the individual mandate, so there won't be that incentive for people to go get health insurance," Kraft says. "Because of that, you might not have as many people looking to buy health insurance at the exchanges, and if you have a smaller pool, then you're going to have higher costs, so it could impact the exchanges by making that coverage more expensive."
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