The Supreme Court of the United States will soon decide the case of King v. Burwell. The legal question there is simple: Can the president wave his magic wand and rewrite Obamacare to mean whatever he wants it to mean? The correct answer is obviously no. The legal upshot is equally obvious: If King is correctly decided, the president will be barred from doling out Obamacare subsidies in Texas and the dozens of other states that refused to be lured into his eponymous welfare program.
The House voted Tuesday to abolish a cost-cutting board under ObamaCare that has drawn criticism from members of both parties.
Lawmakers voted 244-154 to abolish what is known as the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). The board is tasked with coming up with Medicare cuts if spending rises above a certain threshold, but has been criticized as outsourcing the work of Congress to unelected bureaucrats.
Repeal of the board has split Democrats, 20 of whom cosponsored the repeal bill. Eleven voted with Republicans on Tuesday to kill it.
In the next few days, the Supreme Court will issue a decision in King v. Burwell, the most contentious case of the year. (I’m not counting same-sex marriage because everyone thinks it’s a foregone conclusion.) For those still unfamiliar with what is probably the last existential legal challenge to Obamacare, King asks whether the text of the Affordable Care Act, which provides for subsidies for people who buy health insurance from exchanges “established by the state,” also allows the IRS to give these tax credits to those buying from the federal healthcare.gov.