Skip to main content
Press Release Published: Jul 22, 2014

Issa Statement on Federal Circuit Court Upholding Challenge to Obamacare

Today, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., issued the following statement on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit’s ruling upholding a challenge to Obamacare health insurance subsidies being granted through the federal exchange:

“The court’s decision is consistent with the Committee’s oversight, which through multiple briefings and hearings, learned that neither the Internal Revenue Service nor the Treasury Department conducted a serious or thorough analysis of the statute or the legislative history and intent prior to cobbling an ad hoc legal rationale for a key provision of the President’s healthcare law,” said Chairman Issa.  “The Committee’s findings were the reason that I signed onto an amicus brief to invalidate the IRS rule which unlawfully expanded Obamacare’s spending and taxes.”

Earlier this year, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee Chairman released a joint staff report finding that IRS and Treasury officials expressed concern that there was no authority to interpret federal exchanges as an “Exchange established by the State,” as was necessary to expand the subsidies.

The Oversight Committee held multiple hearings, in August 2012 and July 2013, questioning the Administration’s legal basis for expanding Obamacare’s taxes and subsidies, and Chairman Issa challenged the Obama Administration’s effort to ignore the plain language of Obamacare in March 2013.