The court ruled 6-3 to reject the latest challenge to the President Obama’s signature health care law. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion and was joined by Justices Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor. Read the full opinion.
My very initial take is the court decided the case in exactly the way it should have, consistent with the normal rules of statutory construction. That means not getting fixated on the select words in the statute that were in dispute — “an Exchange established by the State” — but rather giving meaning and substance to the statute as written as a whole. Interpreting those few words deep in the statute in isolation would have yielded the ridiculous outcomes that had health policy experts, legal observers, and most sentient Americans so deeply concerned about the court’s decision in this case.
Roberts saved the court. But the irony is that in the long run it will be seen, I feel quite confident, as ultimately having saved conservatives from themselves.
