Rice University health care experts available to comment on Supreme Court’s Affordable Care Act ruling

David Ruth
713-348-6327
david@rice.edu 

Jeff Falk
713-348-6327
jfalk@rice.edu 

Rice University health care experts available to comment on Supreme Court’s Affordable Care Act ruling
Experts say ruling means Texas has opportunity to obtain significant new federal dollars 

HOUSTON – (June 28, 2012) – The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), upholding it on a 5-4 vote.

Two health care experts at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy can speak about the ruling’s local, state and national implications:

• Vivian Ho, the James A. Baker III Institute Chair in Health Economics.
• Elena Marks, the Baker Institute Scholar in Health Policy.

Ho’s key points:

• “This is the most dramatic legislation to influence health care in America since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s. The court’s decision means well over 30 million people who are uninsured today will get access to affordable health insurance and therefore health care. The ACA will lead to improved health care and restrained growth in health care costs in the decades to come.”
• “If the ACA had been struck down by the Supreme Court, health care costs would have continued to consume a larger portion of our nation’s economy and a larger share of workers’ paychecks for the foreseeable future. The legislation was a dramatic attempt to solve a dramatic problem facing our economy and the well-being of our citizens. There are no easy solutions to the problem. The ACA was written with the advice of some of the best health economists in the country, based on years of research and the best data available.”

Marks’ key point on Supreme Court’s decision relating to states’ choice to opt into Medicaid expansion:

• “Texas has the opportunity to obtain significant new federal dollars that will provide health care to more than a million Texans, dollars that will be spent in the Texas economy, in exchange for a comparatively small investment by the state.”

The Baker Institute has a radio and television studio available for media who want to schedule an interview with Ho or Marks. For more information, contact Jeff Falk at jfalk@rice.edu or 713-348-6775.

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This expert alert can be found online at

Related materials:

Ho biography: http://bakerinstitute.org/personnel/fellows-scholars/vho

Marks biography: http://bakerinstitute.org/personnel/fellows-scholars/emarks

Founded in 1993, the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Houston ranks among the top 20 university-affiliated think tanks globally and top 30 think tanks in the United States. As a premier nonpartisan think tank, the institute sponsors more than 20 programs that conduct research on domestic and foreign policy issues with the goal of bridging the gap between the theory and practice of public policy. The institute’s strong track record of achievement reflects the work of its endowed fellows and Rice University scholars. Learn more about the institute at www.bakerinstitute.org or on the institute’s blog, http://blogs.chron.com/bakerblog.