A. Barton Hinkle on the Four Little Words That Could Kill Obamacare

“Established by the State.” Those four little
words, explains A. Barton Hinkle, could be the undoing of
Obamacare. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear King v.
Burwell, a case challenging the government’s authority to
subsidize insurance purchased on federal health-care exchanges. In
the view of Obamacare’s critics, the question at the heart of the
case is simplicity itself: One section of the Affordable Care Act
stipulates that insurance subsidies shall be provided in any
exchange “established by the State.” Federal exchanges are not
established by the state. Therefore, the federal government cannot
subsidize policies bought on exchanges in the two-thirds of states
that did not set up their own exchange. Washington has been doing
just that up to now, thanks to the IRS’ contested interpretation of
the law.

If the Court agreed with the law’s critics, then millions of
Americans would find themselves forced—by the ACA’s individual
mandate—to buy policies they cannot afford. That would be
devastating to them and, ultimately, to the ACA.

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