This Makes Me Sick

The Supreme Court hears arguments beginning today regarding the federal subsidies given to people to buy health insurance, and whether or not the Affordable Care Act allows such subsidies in states where there is no exchange set up by the state governments (i.e., most of them).  The law refers to the states without any mention of the federal exchange, a bit of careless wording by the geniuses who wrote the damn law in 2009 and 2010.

Don't get me wrong.  The Affordable Care Act is a fundamentally flawed testament to America's inability to establish single-payer public medical insurance and be done with it, and it's also a failure at guaranteeing health insurance as a right for all.  But it's the best we can do for now.  That said, the Supreme Court is stacked by reactionaries who believe in a strict-constructionist interpretation of the law - if it doesn't specifically allow something in the law, in exact words, it's not allowed - and they've been itching to nullify this law since it was passed.  Millions of people would lose their subsidies and their insurance, but then 85 percent of Americans have health insurance without any assistance from the Affordable Care Act.  And a majority of them - those who voted, anyway - voted Republican in November.  If the Supreme Court rules against the federal subsidies, the law likely would go back to Congress, where the final blow would be struck.  

Does the law have any chance of passing judicial muster, you ask? Well, it all depends on our Chief Justice, John Roberts.

I believe I just answered your question.

Sorry.