In addition to changing provider payment formulas for Medicare and Medicaid, the ACA dramatically increased the insured rate, particularly in states that opted to expand Medicaid. (Photo: Getty)

The uncertainty surrounding the future of the Affordable Care Act will harm access to care, according to an analysis by the Brookings Institute, a liberal-leaning think-tank.

Christen Linke Young, who specializes in health care law and policy, writes in a recent brief that an ongoing challenge to the ACA should have been easily quashed by the courts but that the decision by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals last month to remand the case to a lower court will sow doubts in the health care market that will ultimately hurt patients.

"The extended period of uncertainty is unnecessary and will impact stakeholders across the health care industry," she writes. "Moreover, while some uncertainty may have existed since the lawsuit was first filed or since the lower court judge reached a decision in late 2018, the Fifth Circuit's seeming openness to the argument that the entire law should be invalidated, combined with the Trump Department of Justice embracing that view in early 2019, has increased the stakes."