ObamaCare is like Pizza Hut, appeals court explains
A pizza is a pizza regardless of who makes it, so long as the eater of said pizza finds it delicious, a federal appeals court said Tuesday in upholding ObamaCare's subsidies.
The case concerned a snippet in the Affordable Care Act that some claimed prevented the feds from offering subsidies in states without state-run insurance exchanges. The ACA allowed states to decide whether or not to establish their own exchanges, and a passage in the law said only that subsidies could go to people who purchased insurance via a state-run exchange. Ergo, as one court ruled, subsidies weren't allowed in more than half of the states nationwide since the federal government ran their exchanges.
But a second appeals court said that argument was egregious hair-splitting because the law clearly intended for residents in every state to qualify for subsidies. So in a unanimous ruling, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals used a pizza metaphor to make its case:
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Coincidentally, the ruling came out around lunch time.
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Jon Terbush is an associate editor at TheWeek.com covering politics, sports, and other things he finds interesting. He has previously written for Talking Points Memo, Raw Story, and Business Insider.
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