Thousands in NWI to keep Obamacare after Supreme Court decision

June 26--VALPARAISO -- Susan Mowbray was outside doing yard work Thursday when she got the call that the U.S. Supreme Court had once again upheld Obamacare.

"I'm truly relieved," said Mowbray, a 63-year-old retiree who lives in Valparaiso. "I was really worried that it would come down the other way."

After her husband was laid off by Bethlehem Steel, the two went years without insurance because they had pre-existing conditions and couldn't afford it. Her husband eventually turned 65 and qualified for Medicare, but that still left her uninsured. So when the Affordable Care Act marketplace went into effect last year, she purchased a plan that cost $164 a month with tax credits covering the remaining monthly charge of $457.

But those subsidies have been in doubt ever since the Supreme Court decided to hear a challenge claiming that the credits were only lawful in states that, unlike Indiana, set up their own insurance marketplaces. However, the court ruled 6-3 Thursday that the health law's subsidies were available nationwide.

"Unfortunately the older we get the more little issues come up," Mowbray said. "It really helps to have that kind of coverage. Honestly, if this hadn't gone through I wouldn't have been able to afford insurance. I would have just had to let all of that go and hope nothing happened till I was 65."

At least 21,000 residents of Lake, Porter and LaPorte counties are estimated to have selected a plan on the Obamacare marketplace through the latest enrollment period, according to federal data compiled by Enroll America. About 85 percent of those people wouldn't have been able to afford their insurance had the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, according to a report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute.

"Sometimes that insurance card is the difference between someone being able to get the health care they need to be able to go out and get a job, to get their eyes checked so they can become a truck driver," said Beth Wrobel, CEO of HealthLinc, a federally qualified health center based in Valparaiso that has about 1,000 patients with subsidized Obamacare insurance.

Not everyone was pleased by Thursday's ruling. Indiana Gov. Mike Pence said in a statement that he had hoped the Supreme Court would have ruled against the law so the country could have started over on health reform.

"Obamacare must be repealed and states must be given the flexibility to craft market-based solutions focused on lowering the cost of health care rather than growing the size of government," he said. "Indiana will continue to be a leading voice in advancing those principles in the national debate."

Pence, a Republican, participated in the law's Medicaid expansion only after the federal government agreed to let Indiana charge the program's recipients a small monthly premium.

Mowbray, the Valparaiso retiree, said buying affordable insurance allowed her to get the kind of routine testing she had for years put off. Along the way, she discovered she had diabetes and began treatment for it.

"I'm thrilled," she said of Thursday's Supreme Court decision. "I was so worried because I know there was no way I could afford that coverage if I had to pay the whole thing. So it would have either been do without or, well, do without."

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