The Two Questions that Could Make or Break the Case Against Obamacare

A month before the Supreme Court hears the King v. Burwell case, outlets are digging into the argument against the tax credits. Here’s what they’ve found.

Photographer: Mladen Antonov/AFP via Getty Images

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By Arit John

February 13, 2015 at 10:45 AM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

The conservative lawsuit against Obamacare’s premium subsidies is important, but also wonky, not the sort of thing that does well on cable news. And yet for a few weeks last fall, the biggest story on Fox News was the unearthing of videos depicting Jonathan Gruber, Obamacare architect, demonstrating the argument conservative legal scholars have been making: Federal exchange states should not have access to health-care tax credits.

The Gruber videos were big not just because they showed someone vaguely within President Barack Obama’s orbit talking about misleading voters, but because they gave a vivid example of what Congress meant by an exchange “established by the State”—a key question at the heart of the lawsuit, which the Supreme Court is preparing to hear on March 4.