I'm Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, and welcome to the latest of our We the People Constitutional Podcasts.

The National Constitution Center is the only institution in America chartered by Congress to disseminate information about the U.S. Constitution

on a nonpartisan basis.

And today we discuss one of the most hotly contested Supreme Court cases of the year, King

versus Burwell.

The question, can five words shut down

the Affordable Care Act?

On Wednesday, the justices heard arguments

in the King case, which asks whether or not the part of the Affordable Care Act that says that subsidies for health insurance can only be offered on a quote exchange established by the state means literally what it says and whether federally

created exchanges should not be eligible to receive tax credits.

Joining us to discuss this case are the two leading experts in the country who have discussed it and in fact

given rise to the case itself.

Jonathan Adler from Case Western University School of Law is one of the co-authors of the academic

paper that led to yesterday's King versus Burwell arguments in court, along with the Cato

Institute's Michael Cannon, Professor Adler wrote back in 2012

that, quote, the text, structure, and history of the Affordable Care Act

show the tax credits and subsidies

are not available in federally run exchanges."

And Professor Adler discussed the case with us at the National Constitution

Center last year as well.

Nicholas Bagley from the University of Michigan Law School has written about the Affordable Care Act since 2011.

A former law clerk for Justice Jean-Paul Stevens, Professor Bagley rejects the primary arguments made by Professor Adler and filed an important brief in the case suggesting that federalism consideration should lead the court to uphold it.

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