King vs. Burwell… ugh.

In observing the events of this case against the ACA; I just keep asking my self, “How did this challenge get this far?”

The case was spearheaded by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a conservative “think tank” that recruited, in my mind, some pretty weak plaintiffs for the case.

Here is David King’s story…

The lead plaintiff in the case, King is a burly Vietnam vet whose large frame filled the doorway of his modest Fredericksburg, Virginia, home when I knocked on his door in January. The mustachioed 64-year-old wore a dark suit and was preparing for his gig later that day as a self-employed limo driver. When I asked him about the lawsuit, he brought up Benghazi. He despises Obama (“He’s a joke!”), and loathes the president’s signature achievement. His Facebook page features posts slamming the president (“the idiot in the White House”) and Obamacare.

According to legal filings in his case, he’s married and a smoker. When the lawsuit was filed in September 2013, King’s projected 2014 income was $39,000, entitling him to a premium subsidy for health insurance that would allow him to purchase a bronze plan for $275 a month—a price that would be lower if he didn’t smoke. (The ACA allows insurance companies to charge smokers up to 50 percent more for premiums.) Without the subsidy, the same plan would cost $648 a month. King wouldn’t say whether he’s currently covered, but he was adamant that he would never utilize Obamacare, no matter what.

David King said he doesn’t care if millions of Americans lose their health coverage, because “they’re probably not paying for it anyway.”

But King isn’t compelled to use Obamacare. Because the cost of his subsidized premium would be more than 8 percent of his income, he should qualify for a hardship exemption. Obamacare doesn’t require him to buy insurance or force him to pay a penalty if he decides to forgo it.

WTF? How is this guy harmed in anyway?

So, there is a poorly written phrase in the law that some say was intended to keep subsidies away from states that use the Federal exchanges instead of developing their own. But, former senator Olympia Snowe calls that out as nonsense…

“I don’t ever recall any distinction between federal and state exchanges in terms of the availability of subsidies,” said Olympia J. Snowe, a former Republican senator from Maine who helped write the Finance Committee version of the bill.

“It was never part of our conversations at any point,” said Ms. Snowe, who voted against the final version of the Senate bill. “Why would we have wanted to deny people subsidies? It was not their fault if their state did not set up an exchange.” The four words, she said, were perhaps “inadvertent language,” adding, “I don’t know how else to explain it.”

Hopefully, the SCOTUS will rule against the plaintiffs, curbing some of these ridiculous challenges to the ACA. The harm by the SCOTUS not doing so is going to be more severe to millions, more harm than David King ever experienced.