Only 14 States Set up Exchanges

Read here the Cato Institute’s Ilya Shapiro writing on King v. Burwell:

King focuses on the subsidies that help people pay insurance premiums, one ACA pillar the administration has toppled. Because Congress couldn’t constitutionally command states to establish exchanges, it authorized these credits for people who buy insurance “through an exchange established by the State.” If a state didn’t establish an exchange, its residents—who would instead use the federal exchange Healthcare.gov—wouldn’t be eligible for subsidies.

But a funny thing happened on the way to utopia: Only 14 states set up exchanges, meaning that the text of the law denied subsidies in nearly three quarters of the states. This result was untenable to an administration intent on pain- free implementation. And so the administration engaged in its own lawmaking process, issuing an Internal Revenue Service rule that nullified the relevant ACA provision, making subsidies available in all states.

As Mr. Shapiro correctly concludes, “The Supreme Court must strike down the IRS rule.”