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The Affordable Care Act mandates that all Americans get health coverage or pay a penalty. To help people pay for that insurance, the federal government subsidizes insurance premiums for millions of Americans. In just a couple of months, the Supreme Court will rule in a major case concerning those subsidies. The question is whether the law allowed for them across the country or just in the minority of states that set up their own insurance exchanges. A decision to take away those subsidies could leave millions without insurance. ... Louisiana is a state where a lot of people could be affected. ... We traveled to the state to interview many of these people who could lose subsidies if the Supreme Court rules against them. (Cohen, 4/21)

The legislative oversight committee for the state health insurance exchange heard Wednesday from brokers, agents and consumers about the good, the bad and the ugly aspects of the two-year-old marketplace. Even as the oversight committee heard testimony from some of those directly affected by operational problems and successes at the exchange, the Senate passed a bill allowing the committee to change its name and to meet 10 times after the legislative session ends. (Draper, 4/20)

The contractor who runs the Affordable Care Act application processing facility in Wentzville paid more than 13,000 hours of overtime to catch up with a backlog created by computer problems after the initial sign-up period, according to documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. From May 1 through Aug. 15 last year, workers in the Wentzville facility logged 13,228.25 hours of overtime to process “backlogged inconsistency work,” according to a report by Serco Inc., the contractor running the facility for the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS. (Raasch, 4/20)