Paul Ryan, Ways and Means chairman, hits Supreme Court ruling on Obamacare subsidies

Rep. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, said Sunday the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Obamacare’s subsidies in all the states is a “grave injustice” to the rule of law that upends Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.’s vow to call “balls and strikes” as an impartial jurist.

“I think Justice Roberts is now counting foul balls as home runs,” the Wisconsin Republican said.

Speaking to CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Mr. Ryan said he was “shocked” by Thursday’s ruling, which said the Affordable Care Act of 2010 could be interpreted as offering tax credits to customers in 34 states that didn’t set up their own exchanges and use the federal HealthCare.gov website.

Republican lawmakers cried foul, siding with the plaintiffs and three justices who said the law plainly reserved subsidies for exchanges “established by the state.”

“I think that they have done a great disservice to the country, because they’re rewriting laws at the bench,” Mr. Ryan said.

Chief Justice Roberts wrote the majority opinion in the 6-3 decision, saying that judges sometimes need to look beyond the letter of a law to determine its meaning — and in this case that meant Congress intended for subsidies to be paid out nationwide.

The immediate effort is more than 6 million Americans on the federal exchange will continue getting subsidies, making insurance affordable for them and preserving the economics underpinning the law.

President Obama said the ruling means his signature law is here to stay, although Republicans have quickly pivoted to the 2016 election, saying it will be a referendum on a law they view as fundamentally flawed.

“I think the law is going to collapse under its own weight,” Mr. Ryan said. “The rationing it will do to Medicare, the denial of choice, the double-digit increases in premiums we seem to see every year is something that I just don’t think the country’s going to stand for.”