In stark contrast to this morning's split DC Circuit ruling, a unanimous panel of the Fourth Circuit today upheld the ACA's subsidies for Americans buying health insurance on federally-created exchanges. Judge Andre Davis (an Obama nominee) wrote a powerful concurring opinion blasting the illogical premise and blatantly political nature of the lawsuit:
Appellants' approach would effectively destroy the statute by promulgating a new rule that makes premium tax credits unavailable to consumers who purchased health coverage on federal Exchanges. But of course, as their counsel largely conceded at oral argument, that is their not so transparent purpose.
Appellants, citizens of the Commonwealth of Virginia, do not wish to buy health insurance. Most assuredly, they have the right, but not the unfettered right to decline to do so. They have a clear choice, one afforded by the admittedly less-than-perfect representative process ordained by our constitutional structure: they can either pay the relatively minimal amounts needed to obtain health care insurance as provided by the Act, or they can refuse to pay and run the risk of incurring a tiny tax penalty. What they may not do is rely on our help to deny to millions of Americans desperately-needed health insurance through a tortured, nonsensical construction of a federal statute whose manifest purpose, as revealed by the wholeness and coherence of its text and structure, could not be more clear. (internal citations removed)
Ouch.