Bill Carpenter, chief executive of LifePoint Health Inc, which has 64 hospitals in 20 states, was at an offsite patient safety event and said everybody in the room was excited about the ruling.
“We are just are so pleased that those people who have secured coverage through state exchanges will have the peace of mind to know that their coverage is going to continue,” Carpenter said, calling on states to expand Medicaid to more income levels, another goal of the ACA. “In many states, this has been about politics and not policy.”
In Florida, one of the biggest remaining issues is expanding Medicaid, said Jim Nathan, president and chief executive of Lee Memorial Health System in Fort Myers, one of Florida’s largest public, not-for-profit health systems.
Jason Montrie, president of Land of Lincoln Health, a non-profit CO-OP health insurance company launched in 2013 with the government funding of the Affordable Care Act, said subsidies are vital to most of its more than 50,000 members.
“We’re relieved that our court made the right decision here,” Montrie said.