Tester statement on King v. Burwell

(U.S. Senate) – Today Senator Jon Tester released the following statement as the United States Supreme Court began hearing oral arguments in the King v. Burwell case:

“The ACA is providing many Montanans with access to quality health care. If the Supreme Court gets rid of the credits that make health insurance more affordable, the impact to middle-class families would be devastating. We cannot go back to the old system where folks just couldn’t afford to get sick.”

Nearly 90,000 Montanans will be eligible for tax credits on the federally run marketplace in 2016.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services if the tax credits are found to be unconstitutional, 6.5 million Americans would face an average health care tax increase of $3,200 a year, and the number of uninsured Americans would increase by 8.2 million in 2016.