Thurday's opinion, however, seems to foreclose that possibility: since the court found that the ACA clearly makes subsidies available to those using the federal exchanges and that and Congress did not delegate to the IRS, a future Republican administration will not be able to wreck the exchanges unilaterally by simply altering the IRS's interpretation of the statute.
Ten states using federal exchanges have asked the Supreme Court not to block subsidies for their residents, and seven states using the federal exchanges are doing so in formal "partnerships" with federal authorities.
The half-million sign-ups Obama revealed today were from the states using the federal exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act, or ACA.
Tax credits reduced monthly costs for consumers using the federal exchanges by an average of 76percentt off the full premium, which amounts to an overall average price for subsidized plans of $82, compared with the average $346 sticker price, HHS reports.
Of those, about 5.4 million used the federal exchange.
Thus, according to the judges in the majority, five million or so people who have used the federal exchange to buy health insurance must now lose it.
In addition, some states allow consumers to shop for insurance, comparing costs and benefits of different policies, without first creating an online account — a barrier for many people trying to use the federal exchange.
Up to 7.5 million people in at least 34 states that use the federal exchange could lose their tax subsidies if the court disallows the tax subsidies, according to the consulting firm Avalere Health, dealing a possibly fatal blow to the program.
First, despite the incompetent rollout of healthcare.gov (the website that allows people to use the federal exchanges), the proportion of Americans who lack cover has fallen from 16.2% to 12.3% since 2009.
People in the 39 states that use the federal exchanges via HealthCare.gov will have just six weeks to enroll for 2018 insurance policies, half as long as a year ago.
