The U.S. Supreme Court declined to include Oklahoma in the King v. Burwell case that will decide whether residents of 37 states can receive federal subsidies to buy Affordable Care Act health insurance through the federal exchange.
Without comment, the high court rejected the request by Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to bypass review of his state’s case by a federal appeals court and combine it with the Virginia case the court has accepted for review. A decision in that case is expected by June.
The issues are similar in both cases: whether states must operate their own exchanges or health insurance marketplaces for their residents to qualify for federal subsidies.
A literal reading of one phrase in the 900-page law suggests that they must. In contrast, regulators and many legal scholars argue that the meaning of Congress is that any user of the federal exchange may qualify for the subsidies.
Oklahoma is one of the 37 states that did not set up its own exchange. About 69,000 Oklahomans selected insurance plans through the federal marketplace in 2014. About 55,000, or nearly 80%, qualified for premium subsidies.