The court ruled that the subsidies were integral to the functioning of insurance markets under the ACA, and that Congress constructed the law with that in mind. The Court did not use an alternative legal argument to uphold the subsidies – saying that the law was ambiguous but the executive branch (in this case the IRS) had the right to interpret it so that subsidies are available in both state and federal exchanges. This is not a minor distinction – that latter interpretation (used by one of the lower courts) would have meant that a future administration could come in and change the subsidy policy. The 6-3 court ruling bars a future administration from doing so. (A future Congress could still change the law regarding subsidies but a future administration couldn’t just flip a switch and stop them.) Continue reading →