I don't see any discussion of the Halbig v. Burwell decision at the DC court of appeals on this thread so here goes...
Halbig was a decision (2-1) in favor of the rule of law. It was opposed (later that same day) by the 4 District appeals court (3-0) in King v. Burwell.
Just to be clear: All four judges who ruled against the challengers were appointed by Democrats and the 2 who ruled for the challengers were appointed by Republicans. Something to think about when control of the Senate comes up as a topic.
Okay, getting back to the subject at hand...
1. If the Halbig decision is upheld then it is a victory for the rule of law (words mean things) and a defeat for DumbassCare.
2. If King is upheld then DumbassCare wins and the rule of law is pretty much formally destroyed once and for all by the judicial branch.
I don't know any other way to look at the two possible outcomes.
Although it is true that we have a defacto destruction of the rule of law going on right now via BO's exec orders and refusal to enforce legislation, this would formalize it if King triumphs over Halbig.
Now...on the other hand...if Halbig ultimately wins (and I'm not going into the three dimensional chess game as to how one wins over the other, procedurally speaking), does that mean the end of DumbassCare via an insurance rate death spiral?
There are a lot of people out there that think that it cannot happen...that it's too late to kill the law no matter what...that taxpayers (voters) in states without their own exchanges would, after losing their fed subsidies, demand that their states put an exchange together. And that seems to be the point of the way that the law was written. (I know that this is another tangent to this discussion but I just have to go there so please indulge me for a moment). In the past two days there are at least two separate speeches that have come to light where a principle architect of DumbassCare has been found to have said things which support the central theme of Halbig. That theme is that the law was written this way on purpose (that it wasn't a typo) to get states to start their own exchanges. Today someone at CSPAN dug up a video of Max Baucus claiming (in a Senate hearing no less) the exact same thing back in 2009.
But...IF Halbig does go through, if it's upheld (and if King is defeated) then we are in for a truly bumpy ride. Several million will lose their free money from BO and they might even have to pay it back. That's where the potential for schadenfreude comes in.