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MSN News
Obamacare on
Path Back to High Court After Ruling Split
By Andrew Harris and Andrew Zajac
July 23, 2014
The U.S. Supreme Court may not be done with Obamacare yet.
With appellate courts reaching opposite conclusions on the same day
about a crucial financing provision of the 2010 law, a third showdown
before the justices is probable.
Splits among the federal circuits have preceded previous high court
rulings on the Affordable Care Act. In 2012, the law was narrowly
upheld when the court ruled Congress has the power to make Americans
carry insurance or pay a penalty. Last month, the court said private
companies can claim a religious exemption from a requirement that they
offer birth-control coverage.
“If there’s a split, the Supreme Court will definitely take it,” said
Walter Dellinger, a former solicitor general during the administration
of President Bill Clinton. He declined to forecast how the court might
rule. Cornell University law professor Michael Dorf said that if the
Supreme Court hears the matter, the same justices who upheld the law
two years ago will probably do so again.
The split turns on a section of the act about whether tax subsidies are
available to needy participants in the federal health plan exchange,
which covers 36 states that don’t have their own. A Washington court
yesterday struck down an Internal Revenue Service rule providing such
subsidies, saying the act clearly restricts the benefit to the 14
state-run marketplaces.
A few hours later, a Virginia court held that, while the language of
the health care law is ambiguous, the IRS had the discretion to write
rules for it.
Larger Panel
The Obama administration said it would ask a larger panel of judges to
review the Washington court’s decision. Dellinger said that, if the
full District of Columbia circuit aligns with its brethren in Virginia,
the Supreme Court “could just leave this alone where Congress intended
it.”
The Fate of Obamacare
Dorf said the Washington court is “reaching.”
“Congress could not have possibly intended that there be no subsidies
on the federal exchanges,” he said.
Yesterday’s rulings apply to a portion of the law making financial aid
available to income-qualified people who buy their health insurance on
a marketplace “established by the state.”
The government contends that, when considered with other parts of the
law, this language covers marketplaces set up by states themselves --
and by the federal government when it acts in place of states...
Read the rest of the article at MSN News
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