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Remember the issue in Halbig? There’s a section in the ObamaCare statute that says federal subsidies to pay premiums are available to anyone who buys their insurance through “an Exchange established by the State.” But that phrase is vaguely worded. Is the federal ObamaCare exchange, Healthcare.gov, an exchange established by the state? Or was the idea that subsidies should apply only to exchanges created by the individual states, as an economic incentive to encourage state governments to create their own insurance marketplaces? You know what Jonathan Gruber thinks, or thought, about that. By this summer, we’ll know what John...

Tomorrow, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives will vote on a measure that would alter the definition of full-time work, for purposes of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate, from 30 hours per week to 40 hours per week. I have a few questions about this supposed threat to ObamaCare: This legislation would reduce the burden of ObamaCare’s employer mandatem but it would also increase government spending by making more workers eligible for health-insurance subsidies through ObamaCare’s Exchanges. How is that a policy victory?The legislation would therefore shift part of ObamaCare’s cost from an organized and influential interest group...

Some 87 percent of people who just signed up for Obamacare are getting financial assistance to lower their premiums, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. That is a jump from 80 percent during the last open enrollment period. ... includes more than 3.4 million people who selected a plan in the 37 states that are using the HealthCare.gov platform for 2015 Full Title: Tax dollars at work: 87% of new Obamacare users given federal aid

A "nobody" named Rich Weinstein keeps digging up damaging clips about Obamacare. I'm an investment adviser," Weinstein tells me from his home near Philadelphia. "I'm a nobody. I’m the guy who lives in his mom’s basement wearing a tinfoil hat." (He's joking about the mom and the tinfoil.)

I applaud the Supreme Court’s decision to grant certiorari in King v. Burwell. Since January, the Obama administration has been spending billions of unauthorized federal dollars, and subjecting nearly 60 million Americans to unauthorized taxes, all to hide the full cost of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare. The administration’s actions have not only violated the law and caused massive economic disruption, they have also subverted the democratic process.

The Supreme Court followed up the landslide election on Tuesday with its own shocker: it announced that it will hear the Burwell case, which challenges the Obama administration’s extension of insurance subsidies in states that do not have health-care exchanges. I think the chances are high that the administration will lose. Because:

On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review whether the insurance subsidies through President Obama's healthcare law are illegal in 36 states, because the text of Obamacare limited subsidies to those states that set up their own exchanges. Here are six potential outcomes if the Supreme Court rules against the Department of Health and Human Services and declares such subsidies illegal. 1. Uncertainty keeps repeal flame alive The Supreme Court is coming at a time when there's an internal debate among Republicans about how the new Senate majority should approach the prospect of repealing Obamacare. Ever since the major...

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich tells Newsmax TV that a Supreme Court decision on Friday to hear another legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act is "devastating to the president." "I have no ability to judge what the Supreme Court will do," Gingrich said, noting that Chief Justice John Roberts once cast the deciding vote to uphold President Barack Obama's signature health care overhaul. But Gingrich said the new challenge is based on making the Affordable Care Act comply with the actual text of the statute that Congress passed and that Obama signed — and Gingrich said that in this...

In a significant setback for the Obama administration, the Supreme Court just agreed to review King v. Burwell, the Fourth Circuit’s decision upholding an IRS rule extending tax credits to federally established exchanges. The government had asked the Court to take a pass because there’s no split in the circuit courts over whether the IRS rule is valid. At least four justices—it only takes four to grant certiorari—voted to take the case anyhow. As I see it, what’s troubling here is not that the Court took King in the absence of a split. Its rules permit it to hear cases...

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments against the availability of exchange subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. Today’s order from the Court granted review in King v. Burwell, one of several cases challenging IRS regulations extending tax-credit subsidies to the states with federal exchanges. Briefings will be submitted over the next few months, and a ruling is not expected until June.

The Supreme Court agreed Friday to hear a new challenge to President Barack Obama's health care law. The justices said they will decide whether the law authorizes subsidies that help millions of low- and middle-income people afford their health insurance premiums. A federal appeals court upheld Internal Revenue Service regulations that allow health-insurance tax credits under the Affordable Care Act for consumers in all 50 states. Opponents argue that most of the subsidies are illegal.

The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to take up a new challenge to the Affordable Care Act, a move that will again thrust the law into a high-profile battle before the high court.The Supreme Court's move is somewhat surprising, considering there is still no split in the lower, circuit courts. But the high court agreed to King v. Burwell, a case in which the Fourth Circuit court upheld an IRS rule that extends the distribution of health insurance subsidies to states served by the federal insurance marketplace.The challenge to the law is viewed as having the potential to cripple Obamacare in...

[...] Perhaps most important for court-watchers, the plaintiffs further noted that contrary to the government’s claims, “there is still technically a conflict between the two Circuits.” That’s because under the D.C. Circuit’s rules, the decision to grant en banc review “vacated the panel’s judgment, but not its opinion.” So yes, Virginia, there’s still a circuit split.

Randy Barnett has an excellent post at the Volokh Conspiracy about his recent amicus brief requesting the D.C. Circuit grant en banc review of Sissel v. HHS. (Sound familiar?) Sissel challenges the constitutionality of ObamaCare’s individual mandate – which the Supreme Court ruled could only be constitutional if imposed under Congress’ taxing power – on the grounds that this, ahem, tax originated in the Senate rather than the House, as the Constitution’s Origination Clause requires. A three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit ruled against Sissel. The panel’s rationale was that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was not the...

[....] So why the changes and why did Washington and Nevada request and use tax payer funds to develop electronic tax credit technology if they “intended to use” the technology already developed by HHS? There are two possibilities: Either HHS had decided it needed a tax credit calculator or it hadn’t. If it had – why didn’t it share this technology and collaborate with the states from Day One, which would have reduced the amount of tax funded grants? Also, a significant amount of the $4.8 billion awarded to states was allocated to develop tax credit calculator technology. Why had...

[...] In King news, on Friday the federal government filed its brief in opposition to the plaintiffs’ petition for certiorari before the Supreme Court. Conspicuously absent from this brief is any mention of MIT economist Jonathan Gruber. The federal government routinely cited his work in its prior briefs in both Halbig and King, but not here. The Court is scheduled to consider the King cert petition in November. [...]

By Jonathan H. Adler and Michael F. CannonThree years ago, we blew the whistle on the government behavior now being challenged in multiple Obamacare lawsuits, including Halbig v. Burwell and King v. Burwell. We performed much of the legal analysis underpinning those challenges. So it amused us when economists Henry Aaron, David Cutler and Peter Orszag tried to defend the government and counsel against Supreme Court review of King, yet inadvertently undercut the government on both counts. Contrary to their characterization, plaintiffs Halbig and King do not challenge the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, much less attempt to “repeal...

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma handed the Obama administration another – and a much harsher — defeat in one of four lawsuits challenging the IRS’s attempt to implement ObamaCare’s major taxing and spending provisions where the law does not authorize them. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act provides that its subsidies for private health insurance, its employer mandate, and to a large extent its individual mandate only take effect within a state if the state establishes a health insurance “Exchange.” Two-thirds (36) of the states declined to establish Exchanges, which should have freed more...

Today marks the one-year anniversary for Obamacare’s health exchanges—which have helped more than 7 million people across the country enroll in health coverage. And while Obamacare’s marketplace is settling in for its second year, serious issues are cropping up that could potentially derail the entire health care law leaving millions without affordable health coverage. The first potential problem deals with funding for the law’s crucial risk corridor program, which protects insurers from major losses. Insurers who agree to sell policies on the new exchanges are compensated for if they incur heavy losses during the first few years of Obamacare’s implementation....

The top lawyer arguing a case to overturn Obamacare subsidies believes he can succeed at crippling the law even if it's upheld in every district and appellate court. A three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit invalidated the federal exchange subsidies in June. The full court subsequently vacated the ruling and announced it'll re-hear the case, called Halbig v. Burwell. The conservative opponents have a tough battle because the en banc ruling will feature 8 Democratic-appointed judges — four of whom were appointed by President Obama himself — and 5 Republican-appointed judges. Michael Carvin, the lawyer for the plaintiffs, has appealed...