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Just to be clear, the DC Circuit majority says this:
So there isn't any doubt what the Court's role in this is - to do just as I said. Interpret conflicts consistent with the law as a whole, and consistent with Congressional intent, as they recognize here:
The two conservatives on the D.C. circuit read the history and determined that Congress INTENDED to deny credits unless the states set up their own exchanges. The other four judges agreed with the underlined and italicized part above. Either way, the legal question is exactly as I stated it.
The text of section 36B is only the starting point of this analysis. That provision is but one piece of a vast, complex statutory scheme, and we must consider it both on its own and in relation to the ACA’s interconnected provisions and overall structure so as to interpret the Act, if possible, “as a symmetrical and coherent scheme.”
So there isn't any doubt what the Court's role in this is - to do just as I said. Interpret conflicts consistent with the law as a whole, and consistent with Congressional intent, as they recognize here:
Although both appellants and the government argue that the ACA, read in its totality, evinces clear congressional intent, they dispute what that intent actually is. Appellants argue that if taxpayers can receive credits only for plans enrolled in “through an Exchange established by the State under section 1311 of the [ACA],” then the IRS clearly cannot give credits to taxpayers who purchased insurance on an Exchange established by the federal government. After all, the federal government is not a “State,” see 42 U.S.C. § 18024(d) (defining “State” to “mean[] each of the 50 States and the District of Columbia”), and its authority to establish Exchanges appears in section 1321 rather than section 1311, see id. § 18041(c)(1). The government counters that appellants take a blinkered view of the ACA and that sections 1311 and 1321 of the Act establish complete equivalence between state and federal Exchanges, such that when the federal government establishes an Exchange, it does so standing in the state’s shoes. Furthermore, the government argues, whereas appellants’ construction of section 36B renders other provisions of the ACA absurd, its own view brings coherence to the statute and better promotes the purpose of the Act.
We conclude that appellants have the better of the argument
The two conservatives on the D.C. circuit read the history and determined that Congress INTENDED to deny credits unless the states set up their own exchanges. The other four judges agreed with the underlined and italicized part above. Either way, the legal question is exactly as I stated it.