6/25/2015 cnbc.com: Supreme Court approves Obamacare subsidies on HealthCare.gov

I've been opposed to the Affordable Care Act from day one. Not because it provides health care to those in need. That is a noble cause. I oppose the act due to:

The lack of transparency prior to its passage:

"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it away from the fog of the controversy." - Rep. Nancy Pelosi

"Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter, or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass." - Jonathan Gruber, a key figure in constructing the Affordable Care Act.

The role of health care insurance providers in crafting the Aforadable Care Act:

Health insurers supported the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and were one of the key constituencies consulted when policymakers crafted the legislation ... - washingtonexaminer.com

Since March 23, 2010, the day the Affordable Care Act was signed, the nine largest publicly traded insurers by market capitalization have each at least doubled their stock prices. Some have tripled. - modernhealthcare.com

I disagree with the Supreme Court's decision upholding the granting of subsudies to those signing up on the federal government exchange healthcare.gov. The Court based it's decision on what it interperted was the intent of the act, not on the actual wording of the act. No less than 6 times the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act references "an Exchange established by the State". Nonetheless, Chief Justice Roberts opined:

"Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them," he writes. "If at all possible, we must interpret the Act in a way that is consistent with the former, and avoids the latter."

It is not the Court's role to interpret legislation. It is the Court's roll to determine if legislation is constitutional or unconstitutional based on its content.

In defense of the courts decision I've read that the wording of the bill was "inadvertent", "inartful", contained "drafting errors", and described as "a bit of sloppy wording". I submit that any such wording was intentional. Again I quote Jonathan Gruber:

"This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO [Congressional Budget Office] scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies. Okay, so it's written to do that."

Bad law. Bad decision by the Court. There is no defense for the deception used to pass and support the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.