Words mean things. We can't pretend that they don't. The ACA was written with the assumption that anyone with half a brain would see the advantages of setting up a State Run exchange. This was further encouraged by the benefits of the Federal Government picking up part of the tab. What wasn't considered was what happens if the opponents of the ACA didn't have half that brain.
They refused to set up the State Exchanges. This meant by the letter of the law, that the payments to make insurance affordable to the poorest among us were not eligible. The intent was always to provide the assistance to the poorest among us, but the letter of the law says it was supposed to go through the State Run Exchange.
Those without the aforementioned half a brain saw the loophole, and waited patiently. If the initial challenge failed, this was the second phase of the attack against it. Now, we can bemoan the audacity of those who are challenging the law based upon the letter of the law. Besides being useless, it shows how a single mistake in the language can have catastrophic consequences. I also think that the Supreme Court will rule against us. I think it is very likely. It will probably be 5-4. But is it the fault of the Supreme Court? Or is it the fault of those who wrote the law this way?
Let's say that we are doing business. We agree to a price for me to perform a service, say resurfacing the parking lot of your business. We agree on a price, and your legal department draws up the contract. Unbeknownst to me, or you, as we sign it, the price mentioned is ten times what we agreed upon. Who's fault is it? Is it mine? I didn't type the contract up. Am I the bad guy because your legal department wrote the contract up wrong? Instead of a thousand dollars, you wrote ten thousand in the contract. One extra zero, and I look at it and decide to get all I can from you.
We argue in court. Your argument is that our agreement was for one thousand dollars. I argue that the contract in writing signed by you, drawn up by your legal team, is for ten thousand. How does the court rule? The intent, or the letter? Nine times out of ten, the letter is the deciding factor.
That is the situation we're in now. Democratic Congressmen had their legal teams write the law. Now, we're reduced to arguing that we didn't mean what was actually written. That's why I think the Supreme Court is going to find against us, because we wrote the law, and we passed the law. Now we want the law to take into account the intent that we did not write down.
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