Obamacare case headed to U.S. Supreme Court doesn’t directly affect CT

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to take up a key case related to Obamacare, but it has little direct impact on Connecticut.

That’s because the case centers on whether it’s legal for the federal government to help pay the insurance premiums of people who buy health care coverage through federally run insurance exchanges.

Connecticut’s health insurance exchange, Access Health CT, is run by the state, not the federal government, so the legality of federal financial assistance provided to Connecticut residents is not in question.

The Supreme Court’s decision to consider the case follows conflicting rulings by two federal courts on similar lawsuits. In Halbig v. Burwell, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit found that the health law doesn’t allow the federal government to provide subsidies to people who buy insurance through exchanges run by the federal government.

But on the same day, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Virginia took the opposite position, ruling in King v. v. Burwell that the federal tax credits for people who buy insurance through federally run exchanges are permissible.