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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHalbig v. Sebelius is about one sentence in the law
The argument goes something like this: When Congress wrote the ACA, it said that premium subsidies would be available for certain qualifying citizens who were "enrolled through an Exchange established by the State." (Emphasis added.) The law doesn't say that those subsidies are available to people in the 34 states that declined to set up exchanges, where residents must utilize the now-infamously buggy Healthcare.gov, the federal
http://m.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/12/dc-appellate-court-hear-latest-aca-attack
The complaint is pretty convoluted, and it's clearly a political attack. Indeed, one of the plaintiffs was also a plaintiff in the lawsuit filed by the National Federation of Independent Businesses challenging the legality of the individual mandate, an argument rejected by the Supreme Court. The other plaintiffs are also conservative operatives, including the lead plaintiff, Jacqueline Halbig, who was a senior policy adviser to the Department of Health and Human Services under George W. Bush. (She's also been the source of a host of conservative rhetoric about "baby death panels" in the ACA.) The intellectual force behind the suit,* Michael Cannon, is a health care expert at the libertarian Cato Institute who has spent the last few years urging states to refuse to set up insurance exchanges as a means to sabotage Obamacare.
Timothy Jost, a law professor at Washington and Lee University, has said that Congress essentially fixed the drafting error in another piece of legislation requiring the federal exchange to report information to the IRS and to promulgate regulations around Obamacare. The Congressional Budget Office has also treated the law as if the subsidies are available on the federal exchange.
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)This. Congress admitted they did not read the law. Had they read it as they should have before voting. They may have picked up on this and we wod not be in possible limbo. So frustrating!
alp227
(31,961 posts)Your so funny. Everyone knows this. It has been disgusted ad nausium, but you know that.