King has a good chance in winning in King Vs. Burwell and that would have a devastating impact on ACA.
King v. Burwell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"If the challenge is successful, approximately 5 million Americans who obtained coverage through federal exchanges would lose their tax credits and, in all likelihood, their health insurance coverage. The Individual mandate, employer mandate, and tax credits for employers to provide health-insurance coverage would also likely be overturned in states with federal exchanges. However, insurers would still be required to cover all applicants regardless of pre-existing conditions, which would destabilize the insurance market in states with federal exchanges and lead to rapid rises in premiums and the possible collapse of the insurance market in those states."
"Only 14 states have set up their own exchanges. If the mandates and subsidies are struck down in the other 36 states, many think that the economic foundation of the ACA would be undermined, putting the entirety of the legislation at risk."
Gruber is a hard link to the intent of the law as it was written for individual subsidies. His videos show an intent of how the law was written. The conservatives will argue that he is a smoking gun that the law was written to exclude subsidies for people that live in states that do not have exchanges. They will also the argue to the validity to the claims he has made (conservatives trying to prove that a liberal is telling the truth) and that he had significant input into the architecture of the law.
The liberals have already argued that they never heard of the guy (liberals will argue that the liberal is not telling the truth).
Nancy Pelosi says she doesn't know who Jonathan Gruber is | PolitiFact
Pelosi:
Didn't know the guy.
"Well, you gave an interesting set of observations, but one that you skipped is Mr. Gruber's comments were a year old, and he has backtracked from most of them.
He's not even advocating the position that he was at some conference. So I don't know who he is. He didn't help write our bill. With all due respect to your question, you have a person who wasn't writing our bill, commenting on what was going on when we were writing our bill, who has withdrawn some of the statements that he made. So let’s put him aside."
But he was mentioned on her web site seven times:
Speaker Nancy Pelosi | News Room | Fact Check
"Still, when the press release was brought to Pelosi’s office’s attention on Thursday,
aides indicated she does not know him – as she does not know everyone they have cited on their website."
Pelosi cited ObamaCare architect in push for law
Then this video surfaced where Pelosi referenced him:
"We're not finished getting all of our reports back from CBO, but we'll have a side-by-side to compare. But our bill brings down rates.
I don't know if you have seen Jonathan Gruber of MIT's analysis of what the comparison is to the status quo, versus what will happen in our bill for those who seek insurance within the exchange. And our bill takes down those costs, even from now, and much less preventing the upward spiral."
Nancy Pelosi mentions Jonathan Gruber analysis | Video | C-SPAN.org
From the Politifact site:
"When this 2009 comment came to light, the Washington Post reported that Pelosi's office told them that the minority leader "meant that she didn't know Gruber personally."
Gruber actually did work on the ACA in an official capacity for DHHS:
"In 2009–10 Gruber served as a technical consultant to the Obama Administration and worked with both the administration and Congress to help craft the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, often referred to as the ACA or "Obamacare"."
Jonathan Gruber (economist) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
What I am interested in is how this will sit with Justice Roberts will react to this whole thing. The statements that Gruber made about how they avoided writing the funding for the law to avoid the funding being a tax make Roberts look like a buffoon.