The two essays in this issue's Report on Health Reform Implementation section focus on the King v. Burwell lawsuit challenging the legality of subsidies for individuals purchasing insurance on federally run exchanges. All of the “v. Burwell” cases (King v. Burwell, Halbig v. Burwell, Pruitt v. Burwell, and Indiana v. IRS) are a set of related lawsuits in which the plaintiffs argue that the text of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) only allows for subsidies on state-run exchanges, and therefore the practice by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of providing subsidies on the federal exchanges (in addition to state-run exchanges) is unlawful because it exceeds the authority Congress intended to give.
Ruling the same day, July 22, 2014, the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in King and the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Halbig came to opposite...
