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Obamacare: Court Rules That Regime Can Not Invent Law

In highly anticipated decision, a court struck down the regime’s ability to write regulations that ignore the law, from Peter Suderman, Hit and Run [1]:

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit delivered a huge blow to Obamacare this morning, ruling that the insurance subsidies granted through the federally run health exchange, which covered 36 states for the first open enrollment period, are not allowed by the law.

The highly anticipated opinion in the case of Jacqueline Halbig v. Sylvia Mathews Burwell reversed a lower court ruling finding that the federally run exchange did have the authority to disburse subsidies.

Today’s ruling vacates the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) regulation allowing the federal exchange to give subsidies. The large majority of individuals, about 86 percent, in the federal exchange received subsidies, and in those cases the subsidies covered about 76 percent of the premium on average. The essence of the court’s ruling is that, according to the law, those subsidies are illegal. (According to an administration official, however, the subsidies will continue through the appeals process.)

Despite the hysterical media spin, the court did not strike at any of the Affordable Care Act, as it was actually written, passed slight unseen by Congress. Rather the court struck down the Internal Revenue Service attempt to rewrite the law to suit the regime’s end.    If the ruling survives appeal, it means that the regime will have to work with Congress to make changes to the law.   Gee, sounds like Separation of Powers to me.   Wonder what is sounds like to the self-proclaimed professor of constitutional law?