NY Times: To Heck With What The Law Says About Subsidies

There’s an old saying about America being a Nation of Law, not of Men, which derives from John Adams’ 7th Letter To Novanglus, which came further from the ancient Greeks, in which he mentioned a “government of law, and not of men”. He goes on to mention that a Republic should be “bound by fixed laws which the people have a voice in making, and a right to defend.” Of course, in Liberal World, laws are flexible, and the written text should be ignored if it doesn’t help the narrative

A new report from the Obama administration highlights the very high stakes for a challenge to the Affordable Care Act before theSupreme Court. The subsidies that the court may eradicate are helping a large majority of HealthCare.gov customers pay for their health insurance.

The report is the first time that the Department of Health and Human Services has delivered some numbers on exactly who is signing up for health insurance for 2015, since the open enrollment period began in mid-November. (snip)

Over all, it found, customers who were using HealthCare.gov to pick insurance plans — some new customers, and some renewing customers — were overwhelmingly likely to qualify for federal subsidies to help them pay their premiums. On average, the report found that 87 percent of these customers were eligible for subsidies, with higher percentages in some states — up to a high of 95 percent in Mississippi.

But, see, there’s a sticky wicket, the actual text of Obamacare, namely that citizens are only eligible for subsidies in Exchanges run by states, not the federal government.

More