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By our count at the Galen Institute, more than 49 significant changes already have been made to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: at least 30 that President Obama has made unilaterally, 17 that Congress has passed and the president has signed, and 2 by the Supreme Court.

As we approach oral argument this week at the Supreme Court in the King v. Burwell case, critics of the latest legal challenge to an Affordable Care Act provision are predicting a disaster of biblical proportions if the Court overturns an IRS rule and declares as illegal the current insurance subsidies for coverage in health exchanges established by the federal government.

This endless loop of major media reporting seems to be taking its cues from the original Ghostbusters movie script. “Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling! Forty years of darkness! The dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats, living together! Mass hysteria!” But only the “mass hysteria” part may be accurate for some of those news and commentary outlets.

By Orrin Hatch, Lamar Alexander and John Barrasso

Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments about whether the Obama administration used the IRS to deliver health insurance subsidies to Americans in violation of the law. Millions of Americans may lose these subsidies if the court finds that the administration acted illegally. If that occurs, Republicans have a plan to protect Americans harmed by the administration’s actions.

When the court rules in King v. Burwell, we anticipate that it will hold the administration to the laws Congress passed, rather than the laws the administration wishes Congress had passed, and prohibit subsidies in states that opted not to set up their own exchanges, as the language in the law clearly states. Such a ruling could cause 6 million Americans to lose a subsidy they counted on, and for many the resulting insurance premiums would be unaffordable.

Republicans have a plan to create a bridge away from Obamacare.

In King v. Burwell, four Virginia residents are a challenging an IRS Obamacare rule in the Supreme Court. While the case involves only a handful of plaintiffs, it is really about the millions of Americans who are victims of Obamacare’s mandates and penalties.

Like the King plaintiffs, millions are harmed by Obamacare’s individual mandate, which forces them to either buy insurance that they don’t want or to pay a tax penalty. But the IRS rule also has devastating consequences for countless other Americans and their families.

OUR VIEW: If Obamacare plaintiffs win, millions lose

On March 4, 2015, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in King v. Burwell. The key issue in this case is how the government may provide subsidies to people buying health insurance through government exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare. This case could also determine whether millions of Americans are free from the law’s onerous mandates and fines.

There are effectively two categories of exchanges: those “Established by a State” (described in Section 1311 of the law’s text) and the federal exchange (described in Section 1321). The statute authorizes the federal government to provide subsidies to enrollees in the state-established exchanges, but not the federal exchange.

When it became clear that many states — today as many as 37 — would not establish their own exchanges, the IRS issued a rule in 2012 allowing those who purchase insurance through the federal exchange to also receive subsidies. Plaintiffs in King v.

The Department of Health and Human Services is prescribing an extra dose of two of ObamaCare’s most bitter medicines for 2016.

The maximum deductible will rise to $6,850, up 3.8% from this year’s $6,600 ceiling and about 8% above 2014’s $6,350 limit.

Meanwhile, the penalty for employers that don’t offer coverage to most full-timers will rise a like amount to $2,160 per employee, up from this year’s $2,080 fine. The original $2,000 fine never applied, because it was bumped up a notch after a year’s delay.

The majority (52 percent) of Obamacare enrollees receiving an advance premium tax credit to purchase Obamacare insurance is facing the prospect of paying back $530 of that tax credit to the IRS, according to a new study from H&R Block. This clawback is reducing the refunds for these taxpayers by 17 percent this filing season.

Under Obamacare, taxpayers earning between 133 and 400 percent of the federal poverty level are eligible to receive a tax credit to help purchase insurance on Obamacare exchanges. This tax credit is calculated using old tax data of the recipients. The credit is advanced ahead of time to the taxpayer’s insurance company. The taxpayer must reconcile at tax time the advance credit received with the actual credit she is eligible for.