Obamacare Subsidies Face Court Challenge

Sean Trende, RealClearPolitics: Last week, the most important case that you've never heard of survived its first legal hurdle. Judge Paul Friedman of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that plaintiffs had standing to advance a broadside attack on the subsidy system at the heart of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, colloquially known as Obamacare. Although the Clinton appointee refused the plaintiffs' requests to temporarily enjoin -- that is, block -- the subsidies, he did so because there would be no harm to delaying an injunction until the conclusion of the case; he did not directly speak to the merits of the underlying claim (though he did note that both sides had made, in his view, credible cases).