On Topic: What just happened here?

In the four-plus years I've been writing this column in The Gazette, I've tried my darnedest to steer clear of that flashing red light of politics.

I knew if I didn't, one-third of you would strongly agree, another third would strongly disagree - because 'strongly” is the only flavor we serve these days in political discourse - and the final third would contend I didn't know what I was talking about, as usual. (That last group most likely would be correct, in any case.)

Today I am not going to do anything different.

But I thought it might be helpful to say a few words about King v. Burwell, this past Thursday's U.S. Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act.

Strictly speaking, the argument was about if some states that offered subsidies to help folk pay for their now-mandated health care insurance were correct in doing so - according to the wording of the ACA.

Remember that, using our rule of threes again, some states have set up their own health care exchanges; some states host federally run exchanges; and some have a partnership with the feds - Iowa is in this last batch.

ACA opponents wanted the justices to find that only those with state-run exchanges could allow subsidies.

But they didn't, 6-3. And right there - that squabble over the letter of the law - is what another strata of the argument was about.

I come at this from the perspective of having worked for a brief glimmering sometime ago in the home office of a very large insurance carrier you've heard of, doing pretty much what I do here except, well, about insurance. I learned there that insurance companies are interested in having lots of 'products” - you and I call them policies - to sell.

The ACA has created a new crop of products. Forbes magazine contends insurance companies, as well as health care providers, are pulling in billions of dollars in new revenue because of the ACA.

But that's not how the Supreme Court should decide things, opponents contended - choosing for what big companies want. Nor should it be about what's perceived by some to be 'best” for the nation. (Someone last week used the phrase 'textual misconduct.”)

The court should rule on exactly what the law as written says. In the case of King v Burwell, they insisted it stated only state-established exchanges could allow subsidies.

What the majority of the judges did was select what they believed to be the intent of the law. In its ruling, the court decided that, 'When read in context, the phrase ‘an Exchange established by the State under [42 U.S.C. §18031]' is properly viewed as ambiguous.”

Chief Justice John Roberts said that the court essentially determined to go for 'Congress's plan,” rather than what the wording lawmakers actually approved might suggest.

When the justices vote as they did this past week is when you hear cries of an 'activist” court. Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz on Thursday deemed them 'rogue justices.”

His words, not mine. Still maintaining a politics-free zone.

' Michael Chevy Castranova is enterprise and business editor of The Gazette. (319) 398-5873; michael.castranova@thegazette.com