Is King v. Burwell Already a Done Deal?

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I’m curious about something. I’ve read what now seems like a thousand blog posts about whether Republicans are going to offer a plausible legislative fix if the Supreme Court kills Obamacare subsidies in states that use the federal exchange. (Answer: no.) I’ve read another thousand about what the effect will be if the Supreme Court kills Obamacare subsidies. And another thousand about other topics related to King v. Burwell.

But all these posts and news articles seem to be written less and less in the conditional tense. It’s as if everyone has already given up on the possibility that the Supreme Court will do the right thing and simply hand down a ruling based on the plain intent of the law, keeping Obamacare subsidies in place.

So how about that? Have we all given up? Maybe I’m being far less cynical than I should be, but I’m still assuming King v. Burwell will go against the plaintiffs.

Am I alone in this? What are the Vegas odds these days on how the ruling is going to go?

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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