In Sickness and In Health

Two separate appeals court decisions - one in the District of Columbia, the other in Richmond , Virginia -  concerned the ability of the federal health insurance  exchange created under the Affordable Care Act to provide subsidies to people looking to buy health insurance.  The law says nothing about federal exchanges being allowed to provide such subsidies - only state health insurance exchanges. The law was written by congressional Democrats  in 2010 with the supposition that most states would create their own exchanges but neither explicitly allowed nor disallowed the federal exchange to provide the subsidies that state exchanges specifically can. Two Republicans on a three-judge panel on the D.C, Circuit Court of Appeals say the federal exchange cannot offer subsidies; the Richmond court says it can.

This is important, as only fourteen states have set up their own health insurance exchanges, while the other thirty-six states - mostly controlled by Republicans - have not.  Also, Republicans in many of the states that do not have such exchanges have amended their state constitutions to ban the establishment of such exchanges to prevent Democrats from doing so should they regain power in those states.  Because the full Democratic-majority D.C. Circuit Court can overturn the ruling of the three-judge panel, and because the Richmond decision can be appealed, the case can go on.  But this attempt to deny the federal exchange the right to provide subsidies could ultimately work, whether the Supreme Court hears it or not.  The question may not be settled until early 2016, and up to five million people who otherwise could not afford health insurance would be affected if the federal exchange unlikely is not allowed to provide subsidies.  The law itself would be undermined to the point of being unworkable.

Still think single-payer was a bad idea?

Meanwhile, House Speaker John Boehner is going ahead with the Republican-majority House lawsuit against President Obama for delaying a portion of the health  care law involving requirements for businesses.  In other words, he's suing the President for postponing a portion of a law the GOP wants to get rid of anyway, and that could happen through the judicial process.

I give up . . ..