Joseph Rugg's Health Law Blog

So, we have two decisions from two different U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal, Halbig v. Burwell and King v. Burwell, and  coming to two different conclusions as to whether it is permissible to provide financial subsidies to residents of states which refused to establish their own health insurance exchanges.

Here is some background of the two cases (from the Daily Kos, 7/27/14, “The Halbig Case: or, the banality of conservative evil“):

[T]he Affordable Care Act expands access to health care by allowing states to create insurances exchanges on which private companies can sell insurance plans that meet federal standards. To help ensure affordability, the ACA subsidizes a certain portion of the premium on a sliding scale based on income. If a state either cannot or will not set up an exchange, there are also plans available on a federal exchange.

So far so good, right? Wrong. Because of the fervent opposition to the law, most states with Republican-controlled statehouses opted not to participate by building their own exchanges, and instead watched passively as their citizens became eligible for plans subsidized under the federal exchange. Just one problem, though: the authors of the Affordable Care Act did not seem to anticipate that states would refuse to establish exchanges out of political spite. Consequently, the provision of the Affordable Care Act authorizing the payment of subsidies refers specifically to plans under state-based exchanges, but does not explicitly authorize subsidies to help cover plans sold by the federal exchanges. The IRS issued a regulation that federal exchanges were eligible for premium subsidies. But a group of anti-Obamacare plaintiffs, headed by an attorney from the Federalist Society, argued that because Congress had not expressly mentioned subsidies to plans under the federal exchange, those subsidies were unlawful. And that argument won the first round in the DC Circuit Court, whose panel ruled that regardless of whether Congress intended the subsidies to also be available to plans under the federal exchange, a strict reading of the legislation said otherwise.

Let’s be honest.  These cases are not about the stated Constitutional challenge that the President and the IRS have gone beyond the statutory authority of the Affordable Care Act.  They are about politics and the continuing attacks on the President through the rant against Obamacare.

There is no concern about law or justice — and the political maneuvering is more insidious because it hides behind black robes.

If we start with the assumption that politics and politicians should have the goal of helping their constituents, under what theory does one bring these cases when the desired result will deprive millions of Americans of the health insurance that they have purchased?  How have so many lost so much perspective and purpose?

The “class war” that the President is often accused of promoting is really being fueled by a conservative myopic minority. Their willingness to hurt innocent citizens of less means who are seeking health insurance and rely on the subsidies provided is just bullying aimed at achieving some political end and helping no one.  Isn’t it time this immorality stopped?