Supreme Court Rules ACA Subsidies Are Legal
In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled on June 25th that it is legal for 
government subsidies under the Affordable Care Act to be available to all Americans, as the Obama administration had argued.
[ The full text of the ‘King’ ruling, and the dissent, is available here. ]
Plaintiffs in the landmark King v. Burwell case had argued that the subsidies should only be given to residents of states that had “established” their own exchanges or online markets for health insurance, as a phrase in the 900-page law indicated.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the majority, acknowledged that the wording of the health care law was problematic, but declared that “Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them. If at all possible we must interpret the Act in a way that is consistent with the former and avoids the latter.”
Other justices concurring in the opinion were Anthony M. Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
The IRS has interpreted the law to allow subsidies in all states. Historically, when legislation includes language that is unclear or ambiguous, the court has deferred to regulatory agencies to implement these portions of the legislation. Lower courts had ruled that the IRS was within its authority to allow the subsidies nationwide.
Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel A. Alito Jr. dissented. Justice Scalia said the majority ruling was based on “somersaults of statutory interpretation” of the ACA statute, and added, “we should start calling this law SCOTUScare.”
Scalia noted that the court had previously thrown a lifeline to the ACA by ruling that its mandates are a form of tax, even though the administration had argued that they were not. The two cases “will publish forever the discouraging truth that the Supreme Court of the United States favors some laws over others, and is prepared to do whatever it takes to uphold and assist its favorites, he wrote.”
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