Is King v. Burwell Already a Done Deal?

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


I’m curious about something. I’ve read what now seems like a thousand blog posts about whether Republicans are going to offer a plausible legislative fix if the Supreme Court kills Obamacare subsidies in states that use the federal exchange. (Answer: no.) I’ve read another thousand about what the effect will be if the Supreme Court kills Obamacare subsidies. And another thousand about other topics related to King v. Burwell.

But all these posts and news articles seem to be written less and less in the conditional tense. It’s as if everyone has already given up on the possibility that the Supreme Court will do the right thing and simply hand down a ruling based on the plain intent of the law, keeping Obamacare subsidies in place.

So how about that? Have we all given up? Maybe I’m being far less cynical than I should be, but I’m still assuming King v. Burwell will go against the plaintiffs.

Am I alone in this? What are the Vegas odds these days on how the ruling is going to go?

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate