Federal judge rules ACA subsidies apply to all states

A federal judge Wednesday dealt a setback to critics of the Affordable Care Act, ruling that residents of all states can get tax subsidies to help buy health insurance, regardless of whether their state opted to run it owns exchange or ceded control to the federal government (Source: “Obamacare critics lose in ruling that supports Affordable Care Act tax subsidies,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, Jan. 15, 2014).

The losing side has already filed an appeal, said Jonathan Adler, a Case Western Reserve University law professor who helped provide the legal underpinning for parties filing the case. Adler said he finds "portions of the court's reasoning to be questionable."

Adler noted that this is only one of four cases raising the claims about tax subsidies in the ACA. No rulings have come out in the others.

Critics of the ACA have argued that Congress wrote the 2010 law in a way that wound up exempting residents of some states from the ability to get subsidies.

But U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman, in Washington, D.C., said in a 39-page opinion Wednesday that "the plain text of the statute, the statutory structure, and the statutory purpose make clear that Congress intended to make premium tax credits available on both state-run and federally-facilitated Exchanges. What little relevant legislative history exists further supports this conclusion and certainly – despite plaintiffs' best efforts to suggest otherwise – it does not undermine it."