Herring goes to bat for Obamacare

The Attorney General’s office put out a press release that, if nothing else, proves elections have consequences:

The Commonwealth of Virginia today led 22 states and the District of Columbia in filing an amicus brief defending the sustainability of America’s healthcare system and the right of millions of low- and moderate-income Americans, including hundreds of thousands of Virginians, to premium-assistance tax credits when they purchase health insurance on a federally-facilitated exchange. At stake is the ability of more than 177,000 Virginians to keep an annual average of $3,048 in financial assistance they are already receiving, and the ability of hundreds of thousands of future customers to access the same financial assistance that millions of other Americans receive. This bipartisan coalition of attorneys general represents more than 145 million Americans.

The case in question is King v. Burwell:

Whether the Internal Revenue Service may permissibly promulgate regulations to extend tax-credit subsidies to coverage purchased through exchanges established by the federal government under Section 1321 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Opponents say the Affordable Care Act does not give the IRS such authority in the states where only federal exchanges exist (like Virginia). The clear language of the law says it can’t. The Administration has dismissed this as a “term of art” and that:

It would be astonishing if Congress had buried a critically important statewide bar to the subsidies under this landmark legislation in sub-clauses setting forth the technical formula for calculating how much the subsidy should be.

Many things Congress does are astonishing, not to mention astounding.

That Mr. Herring would seek to defend the subsides is understandable. Obamacare opponents believe removing the subsides would effectively gut the law. Herring supports the law so, off he goes.

There’s no way to know what the Court will do. This particular assault has driven the ACA’s supporters to stop arguing the merits and start harping on emotion (as an example…a New Republic piece calling the lawsuit “insanely immoral”). Even Mr. Herring isn’t above such antics:

…Virginia’s brief lays out the stakes of the case, and argues that the plaintiffs’ claim should be rejected because the states were not provided clear notice, as would have been required, that their citizens would be so dramatically punished if they chose to utilize a federally-facilitated exchange rather than constructing their own.

Morality, punishment…

But is it art?

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