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Obamacare and the Court

The Affordable Care Act seeks to make health insurance affordable in two ways. Both have ended up at the Supreme Court.

The Affordable Care Act seeks to make health insurance affordable in two ways. Both have ended up at the Supreme Court.

Medicaid expansion

The law required states to expand Medicaid - largely free insurance previously limited to certain groups, like pregnant women - to households with incomes up to 138 percent of the poverty level. That is $16,000 for one this year, $33,000 for four.

The court upheld the overall constitutionality of the law in 2012. But it said the federal government could not require states to expand Medicaid.

The states of Delaware and New Jersey expanded Medicaid on Jan. 1, 2014. In Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Corbett implemented an alternative version one year later. Newly elected Gov. Wolf is transitioning it to the expansion envisioned in the law.

Subsidies on the exchange

Federal tax credits are used to subsidize premiums for private insurance purchased on an exchange, or insurance marketplace. They are based on a sliding scale, up to 400 percent of poverty ($47,000 for one, $97,000 for four for enrollment starting Nov. 1).

The court will decide within days whether the subsidies are available to residents of states that rely on a federal exchange rather than their own.

The states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware are among the 34 that use the federal exchange. Pennsylvania and Delaware last week won conditional approval to set up their own.

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