OBAMACARE SUBSIDIES UPHELD BY SUPREME COURT : BOB UNRUH

OBAMACARE SUBSIDIES UPHELD BY SUPREME COURT : BOB UNRUH

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday handed the Obama administration another victory in its fight to keep Obamacare alive, allowing that the words "established by the state" regarding exchanges and subsidies means established by the state or the federal government.

The Supreme Court's 6-3 decision, authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the opinion affirming Obamacare's fees as taxes three years ago, said tax credits are available to those people who get coverage through the federally established exchange, as well as to those who get coverage through state exchanges.

The dispute engaged a multitude of Obamacare's rules, regulations and definitions.

The four people who brought the case live in Virginia, where the state refused to set up an exchange, so the federal government stepped in. They did not want to purchase the coverage and read the literal words of the law to mean they would not get the subsidies.

That would have made their costs for health coverage more than eight percent of their incomes, exempting them from the law.

But the government argued the IRS was correct in redefining the law and allowing subsidies to those in federal exchanges, too, meaning the plaintiffs would have to buy the coverage.

A summary of Robert's opinion said the meaning of the words "established by the state," was ambiguous.

So it said in context, they must mean that customers of federal exchanges are included.

Justices Ruth Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Stephen Breyer and Anthony Kennedy joined.

"At issue in this case is whether the [Obamacare's] tax credits are available in states that have a federal exchange rather than a state exchange. ... The act ... provides that the amount of the tax credit depends in part on whether the taxpayer has enrolled in an insurance plan through 'an exchange established by the state under section 1311..."

The IRS then adopted a rule expanding that to include customers of the federal exchange.

In this case, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the subsidies can come through the federal exchange, and that conflicted with the District of Columbia Circuit, which said the rule "unambiguously restricts" tax credits to state exchanges.

"Oftentimes the 'meaning – or ambiguity – of certain words or phrases may only become evident when placed in context,'" Roberts wrote.

He said three things are required: an individual must enroll in an insurance plan through an exchange, that exchange must "established by the state" and the exchange must be established under Obamacare.

The law, he said, instructs the federal government "to establish and operate the same exchange that the state was directed to establish."

http://www.wnd.com/2015/06/obamacare-subsidies-upheld-by-supreme-court/#kkzVaYuFBoy7BbPW.99