Brian Beutler: Scalia & co. can still destroy Obamacare — without you seeing it coming

Here's the absurd case, currently in a federal appeals court, that could kill subsidies in 36 Healthcare.gov states 

Hobby Lobby’s challenge to the ACA’s contraception requirement carries huge stakes, but mostly because they aren’t bounded by Obamacare itself. Its threat to the ACA’s actual program architecture is pretty small.

By contrast, while the Supreme Court was hearing oral arguments in that case Tuesday, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals was simultaneously hearing oral arguments in a case that is bounded by Obamacare, but threatens to shatter it.

The case is Halbig v. Sebelius. I wrote about it here, most recently when a federal judge did the right thing and essentially called the challenge horseshit. It is based on an opportunistic reading of sloppy text in the statute, and perpetuated by professional liars who claim that Congress possibly wanted to withhold insurance subsidies from people in states that did not build their own exchanges, knowing that what they’re saying is false.