Morning Must-Read: Matthew Buettgens et al.: Health Care Spending by Those Becoming Uninsured if the Supreme Court Finds for the Plaintiff in King v. Burwell

…if the court rules in favor of the plaintiff, including 6.3 million people losing tax credits for Marketplace coverage, 1.2 million people purchasing nongroup coverage without tax credits and 445,000 enrolled in Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), all of whom would become uninsured…. Under the current law, these 8.2 million people will spend an estimated $27.1 billion on health care in 2016, with $11.1 billion spent on hospital care, $4.5 billion for physician services, $5.3 billion for prescription drugs and $6.2 billion for other health care. If these people became uninsured, they would spend $5.3 billion on their own care; another $12.0 billion in uncompensated care for this population would be provided if governments continue to fund such care at historic rates and health care providers continue to make in-kind contributions to the uninsured at the same rates as they have in the past…. This significant decrease in expenditures and the rise in the demand for uncompensated care would adversely affect both the amount of health care received by those losing coverage and health care providers’ revenues. This is particularly true for hospitals because the ACA reduces Medicare and Medicaid disproportionate share hospital (DSH) payments, which are historical sources of funding for uncompensated hospital care…