BREAKING: Federals Appeals Court Delivers Serious Setback To Obama Health Care Law

[Proud Public Servant]

76. Can we please put the blame where it belongs?

This is the crux of the court's decision (emphasis added):

Generally speaking, section 36B authorizes credits for “applicable taxpayer[s],” id., defined as those with household incomes between 100 and 400 percent of the federal poverty line, id. § 36B(c)(1)(A). But section 36B’s formula for calculating the credit works further limits on who may receive the subsidy. According to that formula, the credit is to equal the sum of the “premium assistance amounts” for each “coverage month.” Id. § 36B(b)(1). The “premium assistance amount” is based on the cost of a “qualified health plan . . . enrolled in through an Exchange established by the State under [section] 1311 of the [ACA].” Id. § 36B(b)(2); see also 42 U.S.C. §§ 18021(a)(1), 18031(c)(1) (establishing requirements for “qualified health plans”). Likewise, a “coverage month” is a month for which, “as of the first day of such month the taxpayer . . . is covered by a qualified health plan . . . that was enrolled in through an Exchange established by the State under section 1311 of the [ACA].” 26 U.S.C. § 36B(c)(2)(A)(i). In other words, the tax credit is available only to subsidize the purchase of insurance on an “Exchange established by the State under section 1311 of the [ACA].”

You can't beat up the court for ruling in favor of what Congress said -- plainly, in black and white -- rather than choosing to divine what they meant. It is not the court's job to compensate when Congress, their allies in the White House, or their lobbyist friends in the health insurance industry can't be bothered with the details of their own freaking law.

Want to be upset? Be upset that it's a badly-written law, cobbled together and passed in haste. “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it," Pelosi famously said. Well, now we know.