(Bloomberg Politics) — Some Republicans are winding up for a possible ruling on King vs. Burwell by prepping some credible-looking alternatives. If the Supreme Court rules that errant language in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) prohibits any tax subsidies going to customers in states without their own exchanges, the conservative 2017 Project, the chairman of the House budget committee, and at least one senator who's trailing in his 2016 re-election have ideas. All of them have sussed out ways to react to an adverse ruling by extending some subsidies as the law is wound down.
And then there is South Dakota Sen. John Thune, who arrived in the Senate after defeating senator-turned-health care wonk Tom Daschle. His spin on the lawsuit confounded much of the Internet.
On its own terms, this was difficult or impossible to parse. The aforementioned 6 million people living in states that count on the federal exchange to sell plans were not at risk until lawsuits were filed to end the subsidies. If the loss of subsidies was bad for the American people, then how was that the fault of the administration, who argued against the plaintiffs and called the legal challenge dilatory? Thune's Twitter timeline became a torrent of people wondering what he was talking about. Even conservatives started to ask if Thune realized how tightly he'd been wrapped around the axel.
