If Words Mean Anything, Obamacare Is in Real Trouble

The American Spectator reports on U.S. Supreme Court taking on a case that questions the IRS handing out tax credits for ObamaCare:

The relevant section of the law, as Michael Cannon points out, explicitly ties premium assistance to state exchanges no fewer than nine times. He further notes that the rules “never use any other language when describing the type of Exchanges through which taxpayers… qualify for a tax credit.” Yet the government lawyers insist, without citing any evidence that would be accepted beyond the work of Lewis Carroll, that the words “Exchange established by the State” somehow mean “Exchange established by the federal government.”

The Obama administration badly wants to avoid making such an argument before the Supremes. Thus, it petitioned the justices not to “grant cert” in King, arguing that the IRS subsidy case has not been sufficiently ventilated in the lower courts. This delay tactic was labeled “irresponsible” by Michael Carvin, lead counsel for the plaintiffs, in his reply: “[T]he subsidies that the IRS has illegally expanded have already begun to flow… and millions of Americans are ordering their lives around an impugned regulation. Yet the government is content to leave the spigots of cash open and the Nation in limbo.”

Arguing that there is little possibility that the IRS subsidy cases will be uniformly disposed of in the lower courts, Carvin provides a pitch perfect case for cleaning up this mess now: “The question is therefore not whether the Court should resolve this issue, but when. It can do so now, thus minimizing potential unfairness, providing maximum clarity to those subject to the Act, and preserving the integrity of federal expenditures. Or it can do so in 2016 or 2017… after millions of Americans buy insurance believing it will be subsidized.” At least four of the justices obviously found this argument compelling.

What will be the likely outcome now that the Court has agreed to hear King v. Burwell? As Justice Roberts demonstrated in 2012, it’s risky to make predictions about the Court. Nonetheless it seems unlikely that five or more of the justices will be convinced by the government’s claim that PPACA means something other than what it says, or by what Carvin describes as “unexplained statutory references, garbled explication, and minutiae of irrelevant provisions—to give the appearance of respectable statutory construction.” In other words, the illegal IRS edict will probably be struck down.

The struggles of fascist style health care.