Afternoon Must-Read: Scott Lemieux: Halbig Trooferism

Scott Lemieux: Halbig Trooferism: ‘Nice catch by Abbe Gluck: ‘It is no secret that the people bringing the challenge…

…to the Obamacare subsidies in the Halbig and King… are some of the same people who brought the 2012 constitutional challenge…. What’s less known, however, is that in the 2012 constitutional case, these same challengers filed briefs describing Obamacare to the court in precisely the way they now say the statute cannot possibly be read….’ It must be remembered here that the… challenge to the ACA… [must] show that there is no other reasonable interpretation of the statute…. The argument that the statute could not possibly have meant what everyone on both sides of the political spectrum thought it meant in 2010 is so preposterous it’s profoundly embarrassing that even two federal judges bought it. This litigation, admittedly, does seem to be based on a principle… that it’s not a lie if you [claim to] believe it.