Next month, the US Supreme Court is going to hear a case over whether the Affordable Care Act authorizes the federal government to give subsidies to people who purchase health-insurance policies through the federally run insurance exchange. The argument against allowing the subsidies is that the law may have been drafted to only authorize subsidies given to people who buy their policies through state-run exchanges. If the justices rule in favor of that argument, Florida could lose $441.9 million in subsidies, Texas $247.5 million, North Carolina in $163.2 million and so on, the Washington Post's Greg Sargent blogs.
Sargent also notes that a number of states have argued that they had no notice that their decision not to set up their own exchanges would imperil the tax subsidies: "Thus, they argue, if the Supreme Court guts subsidies, it would impose a “dramatic” hidden punishment on them and their residents for their decision not to set up an exchange, despite the fact that they had no clear warning of the consequences of that decision. This raises serious Constitutional concerns, and as a result, the states argue, the Supreme Court should opt for the interpretation of the statute that doesn’t raise those concerns — the government’s interpretation that subsidies are universal."
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