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The Supreme Court could issue a ruling in King v. Burwell, the lawsuit threatening to undermine a key part of the Affordable Care Act, as early as Thursday. But the debate over President Barack Obama's controversial health care law is likely to continue no matter how the justices rule. And one reason is that Americans, on the whole, remain deeply ambivalent about it. While the popularity of "Obamacare" has fluctuated a bit in the five-plus years since it became law, the amazing thing is how little public opinion has changed. (Mark Blumenthal and Jonathan Cohn, 6/22)

In the next few days, the Supreme Court will issue a decision in King v. Burwell, the most contentious case of the year. (I’m not counting same-sex marriage because everyone thinks it’s a foregone conclusion.) For those still unfamiliar with what is probably the last existential legal challenge to Obamacare, King asks whether the text of the Affordable Care Act, which provides for subsidies for people who buy health insurance from exchanges “established by the state,” also allows the IRS to give these tax credits to those buying from the federal healthcare.gov. ... it’s certainly true that if Obamacare is enforced as written, there will be losers — there have already been plenty! But let’s look at who wins if the justices rule the way the president fears. (Ilya Shapiro, 6/23)

If King is correctly decided, the president will be barred from doling out Obamacare subsidies in Texas and the dozens of other states that refused to be lured into his eponymous welfare program. The hard part is what comes next. Politicians from both sides of the aisle are lining up to rescue Obamacare from itself. These efforts are ironic, given that many of them won their offices by campaigning against the law — and yet now they sit ready in the driver’s seat of its getaway car. That irony is offensive because the would-be accomplices of the failed Obamacare law are asking governors to step in where federal policymakers have failed. Today I am calling on my fellow governors across the country, and on members of Congress in Washington, to show some political spine and just say no to Obamacare. Now is not the time to throw Obamacare a lifeline — it is time to sound its death knell. (Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, 6/22)

Gov. Greg Abbott opines that, if the Supreme Court kills the Affordable Care Act, Congress and the states should just let it die. In this, he is in reality suggesting death for more than the act. Even more Texans at risk for bad health — and death — will be the certain outcome if the Supreme Court rules substantively against the measure and Congress fails to comes up with the fix. (O. Ricardo Pimentel, 6/23)

The other day we brought you new data from Families USA that hinted at the political chaos that could unfold if the Supreme Court guts subsidies for millions. ... Now Families USA has released new data in another batch of key battleground states. In Pennsylvania, some 349,000 stand to lose subsidies. In Wisconsin, it’s 166,000 people. In Ohio, it’s 161,000. This data is broken down by Congressional district as well. Some highlights: In Paul Ryan’s Wisconsin district alone, some 19,000 people stand to lose subsidies. In John Boehner’s Ohio district, that number is 9,000 people. In Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, five House Republicans represent districts each with over 20,000 who would lose subsidies. A number of GOP districts in all three states are each home to over 10,000 such people. (Greg Sargent, 6/23)

On everything from the states’ systems for drawing legislative districts, to the Affordable Care Act, to voting rights, to the tear-down of campaign finance laws that has supercharged the leverage of the politically inclined super-rich, this court has shown a voracious appetite for finding cases with the potential to disrupt settled policies. The Supreme Court always matters, but under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., with the court so enthusiastic about shifting the direction of the country, it really (really!) matters who is on that bench. (Rachel Maddow, 6/23)

[W]e, as a society, often get less value out of health insurance than we think, and that that might be particularly true for people who have weak ties to the medical system (which would include people who have long been uninsured) or particular difficulties getting care (like language or transportation barriers). That isn't to say health insurance is useless, or that medical care doesn't help. But we're probably paying too much and getting too little, and now that we're a lot closer to a world where every American who wants health insurance can afford it, we should be focusing on making sure that all that health insurance we're buying is actually delivering the health we're expecting. (Ezra Klein, 6/22)

By one standard no government program can fail, and that’s the standard being applied to ObamaCare by its supporters: If a program exists and delivers benefits, the program is working. Paul Krugman, Nancy Pelosi and others consistently point to the fact that people are willingly receiving ObamaCare benefits as proof of the program’s value. Mr. Obama himself says: “When you talk to people who actually are enrolled in a new marketplace plan, the vast majority of them like their coverage. The vast majority are satisfied.” (Holman W. Jenkins Jr., 6/23)

Medical devices may not be as glamorous as blockbuster drugs, but they include some of the genuine miracles of modern medicine: pacemakers, artificial joints, replacement heart valves, scanners, and radiation-therapy machines. The United States has been the global leader in medical devices, one of the few major industries that both boasts a net trade surplus and is a job-creator. The sector employs 400,000 Americans directly and is indirectly responsible for almost 2 million more that supply and support the highly-skilled workforce. Most important, its products are essential elements of modern medical care, including everything from CT scanners and pacemakers to blood pressure cuffs and robots used by surgeons. (Henry I. Miller, 6/24)

The Affordable Care Act created a new kind of “cooperative” heralded by supporters of health reform. These Consumer Operated and Oriented Plans, chartered and regulated by the states, would compete with for-profit health-insurance companies and were meant to appease disgruntled advocates of a single-payer and “public option” model for the nation’s health-care system. All but one of the co-ops are operating in the red. One already has been shut down, and others are in precarious financial condition. Chalk up another ObamaCare failure. (Grace-Marie Turner and Thomas P. Miller, 6/23)

The Congressional Budget Office released its annual update last week regarding the long-term budget outlook. In that document, one chart in particular demonstrated the financial difficulties caused by an entitlement system that has promised Americans more in benefits than it can deliver. (Chris Jacobs, 6/23)

Again and again the upcoming election you’ll hear conservatives claim that Medicare—the health insurance program for America’s seniors—is running out of money and must be pared back. Baloney. Medicare isn’t the problem. In fact, Medicare is more efficient than private health insurance. The real problem is that the costs of health care are expected to rise steeply. Medicare could be the solution—the logical next step after the Affordable Care Act toward a single-payer system. (Robert Reich, 6/23)

Less than a month before she died, Brittany Maynard posted a video explaining her decision to move to Oregon to take advantage of the state’s law allowing terminally ill people to end their own lives. Maynard, 29, had been diagnosed with an aggressive and terminal brain cancer and said she wanted to die on her own terms. “I hope to pass in peace,” she said. Her video, viewed more than 9 million times in the first month, and her death, after she ingested medication prescribed by a doctor, helped fuel a national movement for “death with dignity.” ... Death with dignity laws need to be carefully thought out, written and monitored. Oregon and the states that followed its example show that such care is possible. We hope the rest of the nation catches up with this humane option for life’s end. (6/23)

Much-needed and long-overdue legislation that would allow terminally ill Californians to end their lives peacefully and painlessly got off to a promising start earlier this year, passing two Senate committees and winning approval on the Senate floor. The California Medical Assn., previously a formidable foe of such bills, dropped its opposition. But on Tuesday, SB 128 faces its toughest hurdle yet — a hearing in the Assembly Health Committee, where support is shaky. Objections range from moral qualms about allowing people to kill themselves to worries that low-income people and those who aren't fluent in English will be pressured to take lethal doses of prescription medication. (6/23)

Ever heard of (let alone seen or been on) a treadmill work station? Nor had we until reading Denver Post reporter Lynn Bartel's story on how the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing bought five of them for $12,000. They are meant to combat The Next Great Health Threat: sitting. No kidding. That's what one expert claims. And at $2,340 per station, they're apparently a steal. (6/23)

Every 5 years, the US Department of Agriculture and Department of Health and Human Services jointly release the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. ... Integral to this process is the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) report, just released, prepared by appointed scientists who systematically review the literature and provide evidence-based recommendations .... In the new DGAC report, one widely noticed revision was the elimination of dietary cholesterol as a “nutrient of concern.” ... A less noticed, but more important, change was the absence of an upper limit on total fat consumption. The DGAC report neither listed total fat as a nutrient of concern nor proposed restricting its consumption. (Dariush Mozaffarian and David S. Ludwig, 6/23)

[I]f the states’ initiative to legalize medical marijuana is merely a veiled step toward allowing access to recreational marijuana, then the medical community should be left out of the process, and instead marijuana should be decriminalized. Conversely, if the goal is to make marijuana available for medical purposes, then it is unclear why the approval process should be different from that used for other medications. Evidence justifying marijuana use for various medical conditions will require the conduct of adequately powered, double-blind, randomized, placebo/active controlled clinical trials to test its short- and long-term efficacy and safety. ... Since medical marijuana is not a life-saving intervention, it may be prudent to wait before widely adopting its use until high-quality evidence is available to guide the development of a rational approval process. (Deepak Cyril D'Souza and Mohini Ranganathan, 6/23)