King v. Burwell (Dissent)

"Interpretive jiggery-pokery"The Court’s next bit of interpretive jiggery-pokery involves other parts of the Act that purportedly presuppose the availability of tax credits on both federal and state Exchanges.(Who knew Justice Scalia was a Doctor Who and Harry Potter fan?)

"Pure applesauce."Qualified individuals receive favored treatment on Exchanges, although customers who are not qualified individuals may also shop there. The Court claims that the Act must equate federal and state establishment of Exchanges when it defines a qualified individual as someone who (among other things) lives in the "State that established the Exchange". Otherwise, the Court says, there would be no qualified individuals on federal Exchanges, contradicting (for example) the provision requiring every Exchange to take the "‘interests of qualified individuals’" into account when selecting health plans. Pure applesauce.

"We should start calling this law SCOTUS-care"Today’s opinion changes the usual rules of statutory interpretation for the sake of the Affordable Care Act. […] The Act that Congress passed makes tax credits available only on an "Exchange established by the State." This Court, however, concludes that this limitation would prevent the rest of the Act from working as well as hoped. So it rewrites the law to make tax credits available everywhere. We should start calling this law SCOTUS-care.

"You would think the answer would be obvious."This case requires us to decide whether someone who buys insurance on an Exchange established by the Secretary gets tax credits. You would think the answer would be obvious—so obvious there would hardly be a need for the Supreme Court to hear a case about it.

"Words no longer have meaning"
Words no longer have meaning if an Exchange that is not established by a State is "established by the State." It is hard to come up with a clearer way to limit tax credits to state Exchanges than to use the words "established by the State." And it is hard to come up with a reason to include the words "by the State" other than the purpose of limiting credits to state Exchanges.

The Supreme Court is playing "favorites"[These] cases will publish forever the discouraging truth that the Supreme Court of the United States favors some laws over others, and is prepared to do whatever it takes to uphold and assist its favorites.

One last jabI dissent.