Morning Must-Read: Brian Buetler: The Adler-Cannon Halbig v. Burwell Argument Is a Fraud—Just Ask Scott Brown

Brian Buetler: The Adler-Cannon Halbig v. Burwell Argument Is a Fraud–Just Ask Scott Brown: “It is now an article of faith on the right that Congress meant to condition the subsidies…

…as an inducement to states, but overestimated the power of that inducement. I suspect many of the people advancing this claim realize that it is false, and are engaged in an elaborate gaslighting campaign. Others have probably convinced themselves that they are correct…. They need both an elaborate theory of legislative intent, and judges who are happy to treat the theory as plausible, even though it makes no sense. They’ve now found two such judges. Maybe their argument will carry in the Supreme Court, too. Or maybe the conservative justices will just say Congressional intent doesn’t matter and rule against the government anyhow. (I still tend to think that the government will prevail, assuming the case ever reaches the Supreme Court.)

But as far as… what Congress intended… there can be no debate. You can ask the people who wrote the bill. You can ask the reporters who chronicled the legislative process…. You can ask state officials, who were advised that federal Medicaid dollars were conditional upon the Medicaid expansion (as originally envisioned) but not that the subsidy dollars were conditional upon establishing an exchange…. You can ask Democratic legislators…. Or you can ask Scott Brown. When he was still a senator from Massachusetts, Brown sponsored legislation with Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon to hasten the availability of Wyden’s State Innovation Waivers…. Neither the existence of the waiver program, nor the desire among members to hasten its implementation, are consistent with the idea that Congress intended to allow states to essentially waive out of these same requirements simply by doing nothing…