Sarah Kliff · Thursday, May 12, 2016, 1:21 pm
A federal judge sided with House Republicans' lawsuit against Obamacare on Thursday — a significant victory for one of the last remaining legal challenges to the President Obama's health law.
Former House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) filed a lawsuit last July contending that the White House had broken the law by giving insurance companies money that Congress hadn't authorized.
D.C. District Court judge Rosemary Collyer ruled Thursday that the House Republicans were right: that the Obama administration does not have legal authority to provide low-income, Obamacare enrollees with subsidies to help pay their deductibles and co-payments.
"Paying out Section 1402 reimbursements without an appropriation thus violates the Constitution," Collyer wrote in her decision. "Congress authorized reduced cost sharing but did not appropriate monies for it, in the FY 2014 budget or since. Congress is the only source for such an appropriation, and no public money can be spent without one."
The ruling is not final; the Obama administration will near certainly appeal this ruling to an appellate court.
But if other courts were to find in the Republicans' favor, and the decision to hold, it would have sweeping implications, significantly reshaping the relationship between the executive and legislature and striking a significant blow against the people Obamacare was designed to help.
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