The Supreme Court will wade into the legal heart of Obamacare for the second time in three years, taking up a case that could severely dent President Obama’s signature domestic achievement as Republicans pledge to dismantle the law when they take full control of Congress.
Justices announced Friday that they have agreed to hear a legal challenge that says the Obama administration stretched the meaning of the 2010 Affordable Care Act by allowing every health care exchange in the nation to offer premium tax credits to qualified Americans.
At issue is a phrase in the law that says the subsidies are reserved for people who used an exchange “established by the state,” which challengers took to mean the 15 exchanges set up by 14 states and the District of Columbia. The federal government runs the exchanges in states that refused to participate.
Supporters of the lawsuit say the Internal Revenue Service and Obama administration cannot ignore the plain meaning of the text in implementing the law. The administration and its defenders say the intent of lawmakers was clear and that the executive branch deserves deference when interpreting unclear statutes.
“The Supreme Court has the opportunity to reaffirm the principle that the law is what Congress enacts, not what the administration or others wish Congress had enacted with the benefit of hindsight,” Jonathan Adler, one of the key architects of the legal challenge, said Friday.
The stakes could not be higher for President Obama’s signature health care overhaul two years after the justices, by a 5-4 vote, upheld Obamacare and its mandates as constitutional. About four out of five consumers on the Obamacare marketplace rely on the subsidies, making them a key selling point for the reforms.
Although House Speaker John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky threaten to repeal Obamacare through majorities on either side of Capitol Hill, the administration is trying to get millions of Americans to re-enroll in exchange plans or shop for the first time when open enrollment begins Saturday.
If justices do not agree with the Obama administration’s position that every state’s exchange is eligible for subsidies, millions of Americans who used Obamacare’s federally run marketplace may no longer be able to afford their premiums.
The White House, which hoped the justices would wait until the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reviewed a similar lawsuit, played down the case, King v. Burwell, as yet another attempt to undermine their efforts to offer health care coverage to low- to moderate-income Americans.
“The ACA is working. These lawsuits won’t stand in the way of the Affordable Care Act and the millions of Americans who can now afford health insurance because of it,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said. “We are confident that the financial help afforded millions of Americans was the intent of the law and it is working as Congress designed.”
Enroll America, a nonprofit that promotes Obamacare coverage, was equally defiant.
“Opponents of the Affordable Care Act have been trying to hinder its success for years, and we’ve still seen more than 16 million people find coverage since the beginning of the first open enrollment,” Enroll America President Anne Filipic said. “And as we head into this open enrollment, Enroll America and our partners will work to ensure consumers know that nothing has changed for them, and financial help is still available no matter where they live.”
The law’s opponents say Obamacare’s architects wanted to use the lure of subsidies to entice states to set up their own exchanges instead of asking the federal government to do it for them. To cover their tracks, they say, the IRS issued a rule to make it clear that all states could enjoy the subsidies.
Obamacare’s Democratic framers insist they meant to treat all states the same. They have argued in court that the law makes it clear that the federal government understood the points of view of states that do not want to set up their own marketplaces, entitling them to subsidies as state-based exchanges.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.