How the latest ObamaCare-killing lawsuit works


Conservatives have a lawsuit designed to dynamite the Affordable Care Act. It's called King vs. Burwell, and it's currently before the Supreme Court. The legal rationale is quite convoluted — as Ezra Klein explains, "the plaintiffs say the government attempted something [crazy]: either the state builds an exchange, or the federal government comes in and builds a booby-trapped exchange that basically destroys the insurance market in that state."
But if they are successful, the damage to the health insurance system could be serious, including skyrocketing private insurance premiums and millions of people losing their insurance in states that don't have their own exchange, as Aaron Carroll explains below. —Ryan Cooper
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Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.
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