A little after 10am Tuesday morning, two repugican judges on the
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ordered much of the Affordable Care Act defunded. Just two hours later, another federal appeals court, the Fourth Circuit, issued a unanimous opinion upholding the same subsidies that were struck down in the DC Circuit’s order.
As we explained this morning, both cases hinge upon a glorified typo
in the Affordable Care Act. Obamacare gives states the option to run a
health insurance exchange selling coverage to their residents, or they
may elect to have the federal government run this exchange. If read in
isolation, one line of the Affordable Care Act suggests that only “an
Exchange established by the State” can offer subsidies to help people
pay for health insurance in the exchange. The DC Circuit’s opinion
relied on that line to conclude that federally-run exchange subsidies
must be defunded.
Yet, as the Supreme Court has made clear — and as the Fourth Circuit
reiterates in its opinion — a federal law should not be interpreted by
reading a single line out of context. Rather, “a reviewing court should
not confine itself to examining a particular statutory provision in
isolation” as the “meaning—or ambiguity—of certain words or phrases may
only become evident when placed in context.” A full explanation of why
the DC Circuit misread the law and ignored other key provisions of the
Affordable Care Act can be read here.
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