CU law prof comments on today’s high court ruling on Obamacare
June 25, 2015
Melissa Hart
Melissa Hart, associate professor and director of The Byron R. White Center
for the Study of American Constitutional Law at the University of Colorado
Law School, comments on today’s United States Supreme Court ruling on the
King v. Burwell case that challenged the legality of the Affordable Care Act.
The key question in the case centered on whether the federal government
had the ability to provide subsidies to help low-income Americans buy health
insurance.
On the ruling:
“No, I actually wasn’t surprised. Although it’s true that a majority of the
justices on the court are more politically conservative this was not a hard
question of statutory interpretation. The court reached the right answer. (:12)
The Affordable Care Act just wouldn’t have made any sense if only 16 of the
50 exchanges included the subsidies that allowed people to purchase
insurance and that’s what the court recognized in how it structured its
decision – is that it would have been a nonsensical interpretation of the
statute.” (:31)
Why it is important that it is a 6-3 decision:
“I think it was important that it was a 6-3 decision - obviously still a divided court
but less divided than the 5-4 decisions that are so contentious and end up making us
feel like the decisions were more political. (:14) So I think that was good. (:16) I
hope that this means that people can sort of put to the side the kind of constant
litigation assault on the Affordable Care Act that’s using up an awful lot of time and
resources of the federal judicial system and it seems to me that it’s time for this to
stop. But it seems, also, unlikely that it will stop because there are constantly
lawsuits being brought challenging this law.” (:38)
On politics:
“I’m sure Chief Justice Roberts doesn’t like the Affordable Care Act. I’m sure that he
wouldn’t have voted for it if he were a legislator. (:07) But that’s not the position he
was in when he wrote this opinion. He was in a position of interpreting the law that
the legislature passed and in that context you have to put politics to the side.” (:18)
Hart can be reached at melissa.hart@colorado.edu.