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... In an attempt to establish intent, Sargent quotes Yvette Fontenot, “a lead Finance staffer who was directly involved in the merger of the bills”: During the merger of the two bills, we layered the HELP Committee language that established a federal fallback on top of the Finance Committee language that included “exchange established by the state.” The result was the tax credits were to apply to all exchanges, both state and federal. Frankly, this smacks of post-rationalization and oversimplification. It is easy to forget this in the heat of political passion, but when the HELP and Finance bills were...

The more ObamaCare backers try to attack the D.C. Circuit Court's decision that limits subsidies to state-run exchanges, the more it looks like the two judges on that panel got it right.

... Yesterday, the State of Oklahoma filed a motion to apprise a federal judge of Gruber’s remarks. Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt was the first to challenge the Obama administration’s illegal taxes and subsidies way back in September 2012 (Pruitt v. Burwell). Solicitor general Patrick Wyrick noted Gruber’s remarks are highly relevant, because the government itself has repeatedly relied on Gruber as an expert in these cases: Defendants themselves relied on evidence from Professor Gruber in an attempt to show the supposed “implausibility” of Congress having made something as important as the subsidies hinge on the States’ willingness to establish...

... In other words, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is a chimera--a monster made up of parts of multiple ordinary creatures. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (metaphorical rendering) Getty Images Let's call it half man, half snake, to match the illustration we found. The administration's claim is that it has the power to alter Congress's creation by ignoring the snake half and deeming the chimera to be all man. (Note here the rapidity with which Halbig's critics have abandoned any claim that the plaintiffs are wrong about what the law actually says.) That is a stunning...

Is it possible to discern congressional intent by what was never said? In the wake of last week's D.C. Circuit court ruling in Halbig v. Burwell, that, contrary to the administration's current implementation, Obamacare does not allow insurance subsidies in federally run health exchanges, supporters of the law and reporters who covered it have argued as much: No one in Congress ever said that subsidies were limited to state-run exchanges, and reporters never heard about a debate. The idea was unheard of before critics of the health law decided to challenge the administration in court. It's true that the legislative...

A while back, I suggested in this space that Obamacare might go the way of McCain-Feingold. That campaign finance “reform” law was not, you will recall, killed by a single lawsuit or act of Congress. Indeed, the general consensus at the end of 2003 was that McCain-Feingold was in perfect health. Less than seven years later it was, for all intents and purposes, dead. It had succumbed to a long series of attacks by determined opponents who were convinced that it was unconstitutional. Much the same thing is obviously happening to PPACA. Congress has already been compelled to repeal a...

True, the Halbig case, if it makes its way to the Supreme Court, will present an opportunity for Chief Justice John Roberts to redeem himself from his abominably activist salvation of Obamacare. But more important, it will be an opportunity for the high court to reaffirm this nation's commitment to the rule of law. In Halbig v. Burwell, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals held that under the Affordable Care Act federal health insurance subsidies are available for policies purchased only on state exchanges and not those purchased on the federal exchange. If the Supreme Court takes the case, it...

WaPo's Greg Sargent Devastates Halbig Case Against Obamacare Federal Subsidies With Bombshell Reporting Wait, did I say "devastates?" I meant "vindicates." I get confused about stuff like that sometimes. Then again, in my defense, so does Greg Sargent. Let me explain. This is a lengthy post, so fair warning. Quick refresher: Halbig case turns upon the question of whether the ACA, as written, permits the government to offer federal subsidies (read: price relief) to people who purchase health insurance on federally-established exchanges, or only on state-established ones. The IRS issued an official administrative ruling last year that subsidies applied to...

Obamacare has proven again to be the biggest legislative failure in history, with last week's ruling that its subsidies are illegal. These subsidies induced some 5 million Americans to sign up for Obamacare but are prohibited by law as held by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Halbig v. Burwell. This humiliation to the Obama administration was a devastating setback to legislation already disfavored by a 59-40 percent margin among the public, according to the latest CNN poll. Twice as many Americans say they are being hurt rather than helped by Obamacare. Officially known as the...

And it is precisely because of Gruber’s intellect and profound familiarity with the PPACA that his attempts to explain away his past statements are not credible. Gruber’s first attempt was, in essence, “Dude, I flaked.” He said his comments were the verbal equivalent of a “typo” — a “speak-o,” as he called it. Then another recording from 2012 emerged in which Gruber said exactly the same thing to a different audience. This was not a “speak-o.” It was part of a presentation Gruber had given multiple times.

Editor's note: Elizabeth Slattery coauthored this piece. When it comes to defending Obamacare subsidies, the Justice Department appears none too eager to take its case to the Supreme Court. Instead, the administration announced it would appeal Tuesday’s adverse ruling by a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to… the full D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. President Obama, it seems, likes his chances with the full court. And why not? He “hand-packed” it himself. The legal issue at hand is whether the IRS has the authority to subsidize health coverage bought through insurance exchanges run by the feds....

This week saw a major victory for attorneys who’ve argued that, according to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, it’s illegal to give federal subsidies if insurance plans aren’t part of a state-based Obamacare exchange. The D.C. Circuit Court ruled that the legislation does not authorize such subsidies. Another court gave a somewhat muddled and mixed ruling on the matter that said such subsidies are ok, basically saying that Congress could have or would have been ok with it. The good news, for the attorneys fighting this battle, is that the mixed rulings make it more likely that they’ll...

Liberals are now in damage control mode on the heels of the discovery of not one but two videos of Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber claiming in January 2012 that the subsidies for that program were limited to exchanges set up by the states. Their contention is that while Gruber might have worked closely with Congress to create the Obamacare bill, he is still not Congress. The other claim is that there is no document that backs up what they consider to be merely a Gruber "Speak-O." Newsflash folks! Your humble correspondent has come upon a 2011 General Accounting Office report...

... Perhaps it is not the case that in the 21st-century United States we can live under something as simple and straightforward as the Code of Hammurabi. But the principle is the same: We write laws down in order that citizens may know what is permissible under the generally promulgated rules of the polity. The writing down of laws was the first step on the road from subject to citizen, and to reverse that is to do violence to more than grammatical propriety, Mr. Klein’s huffery-puffery notwithstanding. The written law was the first real constraint on the power of kings....

Words mean what they say. That's the basis for the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Halbig v. Burwell invalidating the Internal Revenue Service regulation approving subsidies for Obamacare consumers in states with federal health insurance exchanges. The law passed by Congress, Judge Thomas Griffith explained, provided for subsidies in states with state-created exchanges, but not in states with federal exchanges. That's factually correct, and under the Constitution, the government can't spend money not authorized by Congress. This has not prevented Democrats from calling the decision "judicial activism," which makes as much sense as...

Conservatives need to get over their insecurities about not being cool in the eyes of liberals. ear Reader (including the many new anti-Semitic and just plain bat-guano crazy people who’ve wandered into my life in recent days), Last night I said on Twitter: Forgetting may not be the right word. Though if this was the Soviet Union, teams of fat-fingered bureaucrats would be airbrushing his likeness from all official records. In case you’re not up to speed, let’s recap. It’s really a wonderful, feel-good story for the whole family. In the Halbig decision this week, the court ruled that according...

Kimberly Strassel of The Wall Street Journal has uncovered even more damning evidence that politics took control when the IRS ... started writing regulations to implement the subsidies, following the bill’s passage: Democrats needed those subsidies. The party had assumed that dangling subsidies before the states would induce them to set up exchanges. When dozens instead refused the IRS assembled a working group—made up of career IRS and Treasury employees—to develop regulations around ObamaCare subsidies... And we know that this working group initially decided to follow the text of the law. An early draft of its rule about subsidies explained...

Don't hold us to what we meant, scream democrats. Jonathan Gruber is one of the creators of Obamacare. It turns out that the way the exchanges were designed were quite intentional: Did Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber make the same mistake twice? A new audio clip finds him once again explaining that Obamacare subsidies are tied to state health exchanges. A clip of Jonathan Gruber circulated last night in which he states that Obamacare subsidies are tied to the existence of state exchanges. This statement is extremely problematic for the law's supporters because it appears to confirm the view of plaintiffs...

When your own stick turns out to be a boomerang, or what happens when you step on your own rake ! The latest revelations in the ObamaCare debacle revolve around Obama architect Jonathan Gruber. You might remember back in 2010 during the fight over ObamaCare mandates ‘we the people’ were told the mandate was a penalty and not a tax. However, when ObamaCare challenges ultimately reached the courtroom the administration argument was exactly the opposite. The government argued the mandate was a tax not a penalty; only as a tax could the construct survive legal scrutiny. This latest Gruber development...

... Gruber scarcely had time to plead temporary insanity with regard to his 2012 comments when someone on the interwebs uncovered another example of Gruber explaining in January 2012 that the PPACA withholds tax credits from states that do not establish Exchanges. I transcribe: "A number of states have even turned down millions of dollars in federal government grants as a statement of some sort. They don’t support health care reform. I guess I’m enough of a believe in democracy to think that when the voters in states see that by not setting up an Exchange, the politicians in their...