Dem staffers blast legal challenge to ObamaCare subsidies

Former Democratic staffers deeply involved in the drafting of ObamaCare argued this week that the healthcare law provides tax credits for eligible enrollees in all states, not just the ones that run their own exchanges.

In an op-ed, the four former aides criticized the legal challenge to subsidies on the federal exchanges that is now before the Supreme Court, writing that both the House and Senate healthcare bills provided subsidies to people in every state.

{mosads}”These two bills were merged to form the Affordable Care Act,” wrote David Bowen, Topher Spiro, Yvette Fontenot and Jon Selib for Politico Magazine.

“It would take an extraordinary leap of imagination to conclude that in the process of this merger, a fundamental feature — the availability of credits in all states — somehow changed.”

The piece comes as both supporters and opponents of the Affordable Care Act brace for a Supreme Court decision this summer in the King v. Burwell case.

Healthcare activists have been showering the justices with amicus briefs arguing that to rule against the subsidies would mean adopting a tortured reading of the healthcare statute.

Advocates also note that a ruling against the administration would fundamentally destabilize the healthcare law and cause as many as 9 million people to lose their insurance.

The former Dem aides wrote Tuesday that limiting tax credits to people in certain states was “never raised and never part of any version of the legislation.”

“Tellingly, the estimates of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office consistently reflected the availability of credits in all states,” the group wrote.

Bowen and Spiro formerly worked for the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Fontenot served as a staffer for the Finance Committee, and Selib was once chief of staff to former Finance Chairman Max Baucus.

Supporters of the King challenge argue that a turn of phrase in the law — requiring subsidies be available to people enrolled in “an exchange established by the state” — signals lawmakers’ true intention to use tax credits as a carrot to encourage states to set up their own marketplaces.

To say the statute allows for subsidies on the federal exchange ignores this phrase and endorses a pattern of executive overreach on ObamaCare, they argue.