I cannot think of a statute in our nation’s history that has ever been under such constant assault and sabotage after being passed than the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. In attempting to give states more control over their own destinies, Congress might have accidentally created enormous loopholes that undermine the law’s effectiveness. Perhaps they were overestimating conservatives’ sense of decency. In a truly stunning and baffling court decision, a 3-member panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that subsidies for health insurance could only be granted through exchanges set up by states since that was the letter of the law. And, since most states refused to set up their own exchanges (usually the states run by Republican legislatures and governors), residents of those states had to use the federal exchange. Even the judges themselves knew they were helping people to get off on a technicality.

We reach this conclusion, frankly, with reluctance. District of Columbia Appeals Court judge Thomas Griffith

Fortunately, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond correctly interpreted Congress’s intent (perhaps they were paying attention during the debate over the bill) and ruled differently.

What they may not do is rely on our help to deny to millions of Americans desperately-needed health insurance through a tortured, nonsensical construction of a federal statute whose manifest purpose, as revealed by the wholeness and coherence of its text and structure, could not be more clear. 4th Circuit Senior Circuit Judge Andre Davis

So this seems like an issue destined for the Supreme Court if the 11-member appeals panel in the D.C. Circuit doesn’t overturn it themselves. I wouldn’t overreact to it yet.