Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
In Wake Of Supreme Court's Health Law Decision, Burwell Says There's Still 'Work To Do'
Burwell also knew that the initial media reports could be wrong, recalling what happened the last time the court ruled on a challenge to the law. 鈥淎re we sure?鈥 she asked her staff. She took a moment to lean over a staff member鈥檚 shoulder to read the decision on a laptop as staff members double-checked the opinion, according to an official in the room. The mood in the room was joyful but also relieved. Some staff members cried. (Sun, 6/27)
Could she believe what she heard? Sitting in her office Thursday morning, Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell saw on her computer screen that the Supreme Court was about to announce its ruling on a challenge that could cripple the health law. "You knew this was it," she said." (Carey, 6/26)
Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell said she had had a 鈥渧ery emotional鈥 Thursday morning awaiting a decision in the case brought against her over the Obama administration鈥檚 implementation of the Affordable Care Act health law. Ms. Burwell 鈥 the Burwell of King v. Burwell 鈥 said she was one of the tens of thousands who had tuned in to the SCOTUSBlog website to see if a decision would come down on her case Thursday, and was, at the same time, reading a memo from staff 鈥 distractedly, she confessed. (Radnofsky, 6/26)
The U.S. official overseeing Obamacare said on Friday she has not seen any indication that states will back away from running their own health insurance marketplaces now that the Supreme Court has validated the federal insurance exchange. Sylvia Burwell, secretary of Health and Human Services, also said she expected enrollment in both the state and federal health insurance exchanges established under the 2010 Affordable Care Act -- called Obamacare -- to decline from 10.2 million currently to 9.1 million by the end of 2015. That was the number her department had originally set as a goal for 2015. (Cornwell, 6/26)
Like much of Washington鈥檚 health policy scene, HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell was logged into SCOTUSBlog on Thursday morning. Sitting in her office in HHS鈥檚 mammoth headquarters, she was trying to multitask: reviewing a memo while following the live blog of Supreme Court opinions, just in case the King v. Burwell decision came down. (Haberkorn, 6/26)
