The Supreme Court case, King v Burwell, was essentially a question of whether the ObamaCare law would be interpreted as written, or as it was meant to be written, as best as the justices could divine the intent of Congress. The particular issue was whether the IRS could provide subsidies to those who needed them in states where they had their own health insurance exchanges, or in all states, even if they didn’t have an exchange.

What the law said was that the IRS would administer those subsidies through the exchanges “established by the states”. However, what the IRS did was to funnel them through state and federal exchanges, which is not what the law, y’know, actually said. They essentially reinterpreted the law to mean that exchanges not established by the states qualified as exchanges established by the states.

How this was decided was as much an issue as the outcome itself. Hope you can live with this power that Washington has over you.

Mentioned links:

In 2012, Obamacare's Architect Agreed With 'Right-Wing' Strategy To 'Gut' Obamacare (http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/07/25/obamacare-architect-agreed-with-gop-exchange-subsidies-can-only-flow-through-state-exchanges/)

On Obamacare, John Roberts helps overthrow the Constitution (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/john-roberts-helps-overthrow-the-constitution/2015/06/25/47d9ffde-1b67-11e5-93b7-5eddc056ad8a_story.html?postshare=2381435321343503)

The Supreme Court forgets about Jonathan Gruber, completely botches the Obamacare case (http://rare.us/story/the-supreme-court-forgets-about-jonathan-gruber-completely-botches-the-obamacare-case/)

Explainer: What You Should Know About the Obamacare Ruling (King v. Burwell) (http://blog.acton.org/archives/79684-explainer-what-you-should-know-about-the-obamacare-ruling-king-v-burwell.html)

SCALIA BLASTS OBAMACARE RULING: ‘WORDS HAVE NO MEANING’ (http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/06/25/scalia-blasts-obamacare-ruling-words-have-no-meaning/)

Show transcript

The Supreme Court case, King v Burwell, was essentially a question of whether the ObamaCare law would be interpreted as written, or as it was meant to be written, as best as the justices could divine the intent of Congress. The particular issue was whether the IRS could provide subsidies to those who needed them in states where they had their own health insurance exchanges, or in all states, even if they didn’t have an exchange.

What the law said was that the IRS would administer those subsidies through the exchanges “established by the states”. However, what the IRS did was to funnel them through state and federal exchanges, which is not what the law, y’know, actually said. They essentially reinterpreted the law to mean that exchanges not established by the states qualified as exchanges established by the states.

Some states said, no, that’s an unconstitutional reading of the law. There are other places in the law where it specifically refers to the states and the federal government combines, but it does not here. That is true. Here’s something else painfully true; this particular wording was exactly what was meant when the law was written.

How do we know this? Jonathan Gruber, the well-paid architect of the law itself, told us so. It was a classic carrot-and-stick approach. The carrot was billions in tax dollars. The stick was that if you didn’t set up a state exchange, you wouldn’t get any of it. There a link in the show notes to a video explaining all this and him saying, “I hope that that’s a blatant enough political reality that states will get their act together and realize there are billions of dollars at stake here in setting up these exchanges.”

This was not a case of trying to read a crystal ball and discover the intent. This was not trying to reach into the minds and writings of the founding fathers and trying to glean what they meant on some obscure constitutional point.