“through an Exchange established by the State under section 1311 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.”
This is the language (underline added), drawn straight from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), that states an eligibility rule for people receiving subsidies for their insurance premiums: namely, that the exchange must be established by the state. What the plaintiffs in King v. Burwell and companion cases are arguing is that people in the 34 states where the exchange was established by the federal government are ineligible for subsidies. This exact language is repeated 9 times in the act, so it is impossible to argue that there was some sort of drafting mistake, or read in some sort of legislative ambiguity. Nor does a legislative intent argument—that Congress would not knowingly exclude people in those 34 states from the subsidies—hold water. It is clear from the legislative history that Congress excluded federally established exchanges to serve as an incentive for states to set up their own exchanges. So if the Supreme Court is going to rule against the plaintiffs, they are going to have to somehow explain away the plain language of the statute, or find a nonexistent ambiguity, or find a nonexistent Congressional intent to delegate to the IRS the power to issue regulations contrary to the law’s provisions (the IRS has in fact done so). If the Supreme Court rules for the government, then any proclamations by politicians, bureaucrats, academics, or media figures that they don’t understand why people no longer respect the law and the courts will amount to sheer disingenuousness.
SCOTUS Chief Roberts has trouble translating English into English and therefore is capable of Alice in Wonderland–>a word means exactly what I want it to mean…Even if K vs B is voted down, the traitorous Repub majority will likely vote to keep all state subsidies. Some repeal.