Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on Thursday was joined by Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito in slamming the court’s 6-3 majority for using “jiggery-pokery” to keep alive Obamacare, President Obama’s signature health-care law.
In a scathing dissent to the majority that said exchanges “established by the state” could also, in context, mean exchanges established by the federal government, he hinted at something going on behind the scenes.
“Under all the usual rules of interpretation, in short, the government should lose this case. But normal rules of interpretation seem always to yield to the overriding principle of the present court: The Affordable Care Act must be saved,” the dissent said.
Scalia wrote: “The court interprets 36B to award tax credits on both federal and state exchanges. It accepts that the ‘most natural sense’ of the phrase ‘exchange established by the state’ is an exchange...