Afternoon Must-Read: Sahil Kapur: Paul Ryan Undermines SCOTUS Case To Topple Obamacare

…weaken the premise of… King v. Burwell…. The lawsuit… contends that the text of the Affordable Care Act unambiguously blocks premium tax credits for Americans in three-dozen states which didn’t build their own insurance exchange…. Ryan… believed otherwise….

You’re taking money out of this program to create a brand new open-ended entitlement. And it’s a new open-ended entitlement that basically says to just about everybody in this country, people making less than $100,000, “You know what? If your health care expenses exceed anywhere from 2 to 9.8 percent of your adjusted gross income, don’t worry about it. Taxpayers got you covered. Government’s gonna subsidize the rest.”… What we’re basically saying to people making less than… $100,000, is “Don’t worry about it. Taxpayers got you covered.”

Ryan expressed no doubt that the relevant language… would apply the subsidies to Americans… regardless of where in the country they lived. His remarks… add to the overwhelming body of evidence that members of Congress, staffers, policy experts, and the media covering the health reform debate all understood the law to be providing for subsidies on the exchanges, whether state or federal…