The 2014 session of Rhode Island’s General Assembly promised to be a perilous one for HealthSource RI, the state’s health benefits exchange under the federal Affordable Care Act, more popularly known as Obamacare. …

What’s a beleaguered government start-up company to do?  In this case, it turned to the federal government, which proceeded to ignore the language of the law (specifically, Section 1311(d)5(A)) and ensure that funding would not be an issue for the state’s upcoming fiscal year.  After all, if one of the dozen states that had set up their own exchanges — especially one lauded for being among the least-poorly done — it might have made the 2014 election season even more difficult for the president’s Democrat colleagues.

Changing the rules in order to avoid political pitfalls has become a recurring theme with Obamacare, and in government generally.  Today, the Supreme Court has begun hearings on the case of King v. Burwell, on the question of whether the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) exceeded its authority by ignoring the legal distinction between exchanges “established by the State” and those established by the federal government.

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