What's impact on N.J. if health care law overturned?

http://www.app.com/article/20120328/NJNEWS/303280072/What-s-impact-on-N-J-if-health-care-law-overturned-

Written by
Bonnie Delaney, Asbury Park Press, Staff Writer
 

Love it or hate it, the Affordable Care Act has already helped New Jersey’s senior citizens save an estimated $95 million by closing the Medicare prescription plan doughnut hole. As of last June, 2.5 million young adults nationwide have gained coverage through a provision that requires employers and health insurers to allow them to stay on their parents’ plans until they turn 26.

But those popular components of the act — as well as many others like guaranteed coverage for people with pre-existing conditions — could be lost if the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down the 2010 law passed by Congress and challenged by 26 states as unconstitutional, said Joel C. Cantor, director of the Rutgers Center for State Health Policy and a professor of public policy at Rutgers...

BEHIND THE NEWS

An August 2011 report by the Rutgers Center for State Health Policy, headed by Joel C. Cantor, said the following estimates of changes in coverage could be expected with implementation of the Affordable Care Act:

• The number of uninsured in New Jersey will decline from 14.5 percent of the non-elderly population to 8.6 percent, increasing the number of covered people by about 444,000.
• The non-group health insurance market will gain the most covered individuals, increasing from 2.8 percent of the non-elderly to 7.6 percent, an increase of about 362,000 people. Of those enrolled in non-group coverage after reform, more than half would be eligible for federal tax credit subsidies.
• Medicaid/NJ FamilyCare also will expand substantially under reform, increasing from covering 13.6 percent to 16.7 percent of the non-elderly in the state, an expansion of about 234,000 individuals. More than half of this projected increase will be non-parent adults (132,000), although it is projected that the number of enrolled children will also increase.
• The percentage of people with employer-sponsored coverage will decline slightly.