On King v. Burwell by Professor Michelle Mello

The opinion of the 6-person majority in King is long and complex, winding its way through multiple ways of approaching the interpretation of the Affordable Care Act’s tax credits provision.  But there are three key takeaway points.

First, the Court held that those four little words, “established by the State,” are ambiguous—even though they have a seemingly clear natural meaning.  Therefore, the Court said, the words have to be considered in the context of the statute as a whole and what Congress was trying to do in passing it. Read more »

On King v. Burwell and the Survival of the Affordable Care Act by Professor Hank Greely

Today is my birthday – and the Supreme Court (or, at least, two-thirds of it) just gave me, most people who follow health policy, and millions of now still-insured Americans a present: King v. Burwell.

There is a lot to say about this decision, but I want to focus on three things: the strength of the conflicting substantive arguments, the possible internal Court dynamics that resulted in the majority and dissenting opinion, and a guess at some deeper meanings of the case for the future of health care in America. Read more »

Obamacare Lives to Fight Another Day by Professor David Studdert

Those of us eagerly awaiting the outcome of King v Burwell had our answer from a single innocuous word in the first sentence of the decision, when the majority describes the reforms as “interlocking.”

The health reform package Congress passed in 2010 is complex, the product of a series of political compromises. A thousand-page statute reflects that complexity. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) lives to fight another day because a majority of the Court was willing to look past some sloppily-worded language in the tome and grapple with what the reforms as a whole aimed to achieve. Read more »