Issa Statement on Supreme Court Decision to Hear Challenge to Obamacare
Today, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., issued the following statement on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to hear a legal challenge to the 4th Circuit ruling on whether Obamacare health insurance subsidies can be granted through the federal exchange:
“President’s Obama’s health law was pushed on the American people through a highly partisan effort that never did an adequate analysis of the government’s authority to provide premium subsidies through exchanges established by the federal government. The sloppy and rushed nature of the process that created the health law is rightly catching up to it. The statute provides no authority for subsidies through the federal exchange, and proponents of the law cannot cover-up their regrets by ignoring the plain text of the law when it proves inconvenient.”
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee released a staff report in February, finding that Internal Revenue Service and Department of 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 and Government Reform Committee held hearings in July 2013 and August 2012 questioning the Obama Administration’s legal basis for expanding Obamacare’s taxes and subsidies.