WASHINGTON — Obamacare has survived — again.
In a major win for the Obama administration, the Supreme Court held in a 6-3 decision that the Affordable Care Act authorized federal tax credits for eligible Americans living not only in states with their own exchanges but also in the 34 states with federal exchanges.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for himself, Justice Anthony Kennedy and the four liberal justices. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the dissent, joined by Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
“Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them,” Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. “If at all possible, we must interpret the Act in a way that is consistent with the former, and avoids the latter.”
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In a dissent, Scalia said “we should start calling this law SCOTUScare,” referring to the two times the Court has saved the law.
The ruling staved off a major political showdown and what would have been a mad scramble in some states to set up their own health care exchanges to keep millions from losing healthcare coverage.
Challengers to the law argued that the federal government should not be allowed to continue doling out subsidies to individuals living in states without their own health care exchanges and a ruling in their favor would have cut off subsidies to 6.4 million Americans, absent a congressional fix or state action.
The ruling is a huge victory for President Barack Obama who nearly saw four words in the Affordable Care Act throw his signature achievement into chaos.
The income-based subsidies are crucial to the law’s success, helping to make health insurance more affordable and ultimately reducing the number of uninsured Americans, and shutting off the subsidy spigot to individuals in the 34 states that rely on exchanges run by the federal government would have upended the law.
Congress would have had to amend the Affordable Care Act to fix the “established by the state” language — a politically treacherous and likely untenable action in a Republican Congress — or governors in the 34 states without their own exchanges, most of them Republicans, would have had to establish their own exchanges — another tough ask.
Roberts, writing for the majority, said while the contentious phrase was ambiguous, its meaning in context of the law as a whole was clear.
“The context and structure of the Act compel us to depart from what would otherwise be the most natural reading of the pertinent statutory phrase,” Roberts wrote.
Roberts, a conservative, was once again an unlikely hero in saving Obama’s signature legislative achievement. He took heat from conservatives in 2012 when he first saved the law from a major constitutional challenge in a decision that stunned pundits and politicos across the ideological spectrum.
Republican presidential candidates quickly denounced the ruling.
“I disagree with the Court’s ruling and believe they have once again erred in trying to correct the mistakes made by President Obama and Congress in forcing Obamacare on the American people,” said Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. “I remain committed to repealing this bad law and replacing it with my consumer-centered plan that puts patients and families back in control of their health care decisions.”
Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton took to Twitter to praise the decision.
“Yes!” she tweeted. “SCOTUS affirms what we know is true in our hearts & under the law: Health insurance should be affordable & available to all.”
Just 16 states and the District of Columbia have set up their own health insurance marketplaces, which left millions of residents in the 34 states that rely on exchanges run by the federal government vulnerable to the Supreme Court’s ruling.
Challengers had argued that the words “established by the State” clearly barred the government from doling out subsidies in the 34 states without their own healthcare marketplaces.
They said that Congress limited the subsidies in order to encourage the states to set up their own exchanges and when that failed on a large scale, the IRS tried to “fix” the law.
“If the rule of law means anything, it is that text is not infinitely malleable, and that agencies must follow the law as written—not revise it to ‘better achieve’ what they assume to have been Congress’s purposes,” wrote Michael Carvin, an attorney for the challengers.
But it was Solicitor Generald Donald B. Verrilli, Jr. who won over the justices, arguing that Congress always intended the subsidies be available to everyone — regardless of the actions of their state leaders.
Verrilli warned in court briefs that if the challengers prevailed, the states with federally-run exchanges “would face the very death spirals the Act was structured to avoid and insurance coverage for millions of their residents would be extinguished.”
Lower courts had split on the issue. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia invalidated the IRS rule while the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the Obama administration.
Senator Tim Kaine released the following statement on the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold key provisions of the Affordable Care Act:
“I applaud the Supreme Court for its decision to uphold the important tax credits that millions of Americans – including nearly 300,000 in Virginia – rely on to access high quality, affordable health care. The decision is a direct rejection of the heartless effort led by health care law opponents to push families – many of whom have insurance coverage for the first time – back into the ranks of the vulnerable uninsured.”
Senator Mark Warner released this statement after the decision:
“Today’s 6-3 decision preserves affordable health care coverage for more than 300,000 Virginians who purchased coverage through the federal exchange. This is the second time the nation’s highest court has validated our country’s important shift toward affordable and accessible health care for everyone. I consistently have said there are many ways we could improve the Affordable Care Act. I really hope today’s ruling allows us as a country to move beyond divisive attacks and come together to work to improve health care quality, access, and affordability.”
