Is King v. Burwell Already a Done Deal?

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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?

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do things differently in the aftermath of a political crisis: Watergate. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after, and go deep on, stories others don’t. And we’re a nonprofit newsroom because we knew corporations and billionaires would never fund the journalism we do. Our reporting makes a difference in policies and people’s lives changed.

And we need your support like never before to vigorously fight back against the existential threats American democracy and journalism face. We’re running behind our online fundraising targets and urgently need all hands on deck right now. We can’t afford to come up short—we have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

Please help with a donation today if you can—even just a few bucks helps. Not ready to donate but interested in our work? Sign up for our Daily newsletter to stay well-informed—and see what makes our people-powered, not profit-driven, journalism special.

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