This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, June 25, 2015.

I'm Caleb Brown. Today the Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision authored by the Chief Justice

rescued billions in subsidies and taxes that the Affordable Care Act did not

authorize to talk about the legal constitutional and policy consequences of

the court's opinion. I speak with Trevor Burris, a research fellow at the Cato

Institute of Michael Cannon Director of Health Policy Studies. and I speak with Trevor Burris, a research fellow at the Cato Institute,

and Michael Cannon Director of Health Policy Studies at Cato, talk about the fallout

from today's decision.

What, as a matter of practical policy consequence, does this decision the King v Burwell decision give us?

Well it maintains the status quo which is there are 34 38 states that did not establish a health insurance exchange under Obamacare.

And in those states the administration had been issuing what they call premium assistance

tax credits, premium subsidies, to about six and a half million people enrolled in

health care dot go of the Obamacare exchange that the federal government

established in those 38 states. So what the challengers and I should mention those subsidies trigger penalties against

employers and individuals in those states under the employer and individual mandates.

So what was at issue in King v Burwell was the legality of about $30 billion worth of premium

subsidies going to six and a half million people and the imposition of the employer

mandate and the individual mandate on around 70 million people all those

38 states. The Supreme Court said those things can stay.

So there's no disruption to the status quo.

Unfortunately, the disruption is to the statute that Congress enacted

and to the separation of powers because what the court admitted was that the plain language

...