The White House on Wednesday said President Obama will step up his defense of key provisions of the Obamacare law facing a Supreme Court challenge and is confident that his side will prevail because “we have the sound legal arguments on our side.”
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments this morning in a case asserting that the law forbids the federal government from providing tax subsidies for insurance purchases in the three dozen states that have not established their own insurance marketplaces.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest Wednesday said White House counsel Neil Eggleston attended the Supreme Court session and briefed Obama afterward.
“We feel like the session was useful to give him a chance to illustrate how clearly the law reads,” Earnest said, although he noted that it’s unwise to draw conclusions on how the Supreme Court may rule based solely on the questioning of the justices.
Earnest argued that the tax subsidy provision is a “fundamental part” of Obamacare and the court challenge is putting the entire law at risk even though the law is “really clear” that the subsidies are allowed.
“You have to really take four words out of context in a 900-page law to make it mean what the plaintiffs in this case want it to mean,” Earnest said.
The plaintiff’s argument is focused on a four-word phrase in the law that appears to say that subsidies are only available to people living where an exchange has been “established by a state.”
Michael Carvin, the lawyer representing the plaintiffs, says the law was intentionally phrased that way to pressure states set up their own exchanges. The IRS, he said, violated that language when it issued a regulation allowing subsidies nationwide.
U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr. counters that other provisions in the law, along with its general purpose and thrust, override the four-word phrase and make it clear that the subsidies were meant to be available in all 50 states.
Earnest also stressed the positive impacts so far of the Obamacare law, arguing that it prevents people with pre-existing conditions from being denied coverage, prevents women from being charged more for coverage then men, and has helped millions of uninsured Americans get covered for the first time.
“I do think the president when confronted with [questions about the Supreme Court challenge], will talk about how beneficial it has been to all Americans,” he said. “But we will continue to be entirely respectful about the justice process and we can be respectful because we have the sound legal arguments on our side.”
