Moving Beyond Supreme Court Ruling

For the second time in three years, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has survived a significant legal challenge at the Supreme Court.

Today’s ruling should put an end to the question of whether the ACA is the law of the land. It also should provide a level of security that has been lacking since the law’s passage.

The millions of people insured through the exchanges, whether or not they benefit from subsidies, can be confident that the markets won’t experience sudden instability. Providers can continue to count on the coverage as a source of payment for services provided. And insurers are free of worry that a ruling against government subsidies in the 34 states without their own insurance exchanges would trigger a series of new changes to the law that might lead to its unraveling nationwide.

As I’ve said before, the ACA isn’t perfect. But whether you agree with it or not, it is the law of the land, and it was a needed response to address unsustainable conditions that existed in the health care market prior to the law’s enactment in 2010.

At Scripps, we have been working to reduce costs and improve quality even before health care reform came about, and since have been committed to continuing those efforts no matter what happened with the ACA — it’s just the right thing to do for our patients. We’re seeing results from our efforts to reduce unnecessary variation and redundancy within health care operations, and to replace old systems with more innovative approaches and technologies.

With this latest court decision behind us, I hope we can, as a nation, all move forward to build the higher quality and more cost effective health care system that all Americans deserve.