Megan McArdle lays out the problem for the administration with regard to Halbig v. Burrell*:
When you read through the ruling, it’s easy to see the many ways in which the law’s architects brought this on themselves. The law was highly complex, badly drafted and highly controversial. When a Republican won a special election for the Senate in Massachusetts (!), the Democrats had to push it through on a straight party-line vote with some adroit parliamentary maneuvering — which gave them a health-care law, but one that was badly put together and couldn’t be substantially amended. The gaping holes were patched with administrative fixes, like an Internal Revenue Service ruling that held federally established exchanges to be equivalent to an exchange established by the state. But the vast scale of the law meant that the administrative gymnastics that held it together might not be sustainable.
Legislate in haste, repent at leisure. Not that this administration ever repents anything, of course. They’re not exactly enamoured of ever admitting that Barack Obama was wrong about anything, although when it comes to Obamacare it’s sometimes difficult to figure out what the administration was right about. Even their justification for the individual mandate (Commerce Clause) got shot down, 5-4**… Continue reading A quick look at why Halbig v. Burrell got decided the way that it did.