More Americans are hoping that the Supreme Court will spike the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) today than did prior to the oral arguments -- but only by a couple percentage points.
The individual mandate itself took a bit of a hit, too, according to a New York Times/CBS poll conducted from May 31-June 3, and published on Thursday.
A survey taken between March 21-25 found that just under 40 percent of Americans called for overturning the entire law, which the most recent results put that answer at 41 percent.
Conversely, 26 percent of respondents in the first poll wanted to keep the entire law; that number dropped to 24 percent now.
Regarding the individual mandate, 29 percent of those polled in late March wanted it to be removed from the law, while that dipped to 27 percent now.
"Legal scholars and political scientists are divided over whether the justices take account of public opinion in making their decisions," Adam Liptak and Allison Kopicki wrote in The New York Times blog, pointing to a 2010 study published in the Georgetown Law Journal suggesting that academics, journalists and other elites hold more sway.
The inverse may be true of citizens the Times and CBS polled, any changes arising since the oral arguments being so fine, in fact, the pollsters noted that results "appeared to be largely unaffected by more than six hours of arguments in the Supreme Court."
And while some folks are betting on the SOCUTS ruling, Vegas-style, Moody's Investor's Services this week stopped short of wagering on the outcome but did suggest that SCOTUS will rule one of three ways.
- The law is constitutional. For-profit hospitals will benefit as their exposure to bad-debt charges drops; pharmaceutical companies will continue to incur the costs associated with the law; and medical-device makers will face a new tax on US revenues, Moody's explained.
- The court strikes down the individual mandate only. The effect will be credit negative for all three industry segments. "With fewer people covered by healthcare insurance, for-profit hospitals will face increased bad-debt exposure and reduced reimbursement rates," Moody's wrote in the report (subscription required). "Pharmaceutical companies would sell fewer drugs and medical-device makers would pay a new excise tax and feel pricing pressure from hospitals."
- The court overturns the entire ACA. This would also be credit-negative for all three segments, according to Moody's, and for many of the same reasons listed under option 2.
No word on whether the Justices take Moody's ratings into consideration when ruling on matters of constitutionality.
Update: HHS Secretry Kathleen Sebelius said this morning that should SCOTUS overturn the entire ACA, her department will be "ready for court contingenices," Politco reports, but that such a ruling would have "a pretty cataclysmic impact."
Tom Sullivan is editor of Government Health IT.