Christopher Cross: Supreme Court must rule on Obamacare law as it was written

Re “Health Care fight has blame game” (Page A11, May 30): If I were on the Supreme Court today, I would rule against government subsidies to states that do not set up a health care exchange. The simple fact is the law states “Insurance subsidies are available on exchanges established by the state.” What do you not understand about that? We cannot allow lawmaking at the bench. The only decision here should be a 9-0 vote against subsidies to states without exchanges. Any judge who votes otherwise is an activist.

Now we have politicians arguing it was a typo and they never intended to restrict subsidies. This is a fraudulent argument. If any Supreme Court Justice presiding on this matter who twists the wording to suggest this was typo or an unintended meaning of the law, then the Supreme Court has proven to be an activist institution and demonstrates our republic means nothing.

You can’t change the law to mean what you want it to. We need judges who will uphold the law and can be objective by strictly reviewing the law based on constitutional guidelines. If our institutions cannot uphold the law, then we no longer have a valid government.

This story was originally published June 8, 2015 at 6:59 PM with the headline "Christopher Cross: Supreme Court must rule on Obamacare law as it was written."