I have a post over at National Review Online’s Bench Memos blog that explains why, contrary to Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s concerns, the King v. Burwell challengers’ interpretation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a.k.a., PPACA, ACA, and ObamaCare) doesn’t coerce states. At least, not under the Court’s current tests for determining whether Congress is coercing states.

If you happen to be a busy Supreme Court justice, here’s a spoiler:

1. The ACA’s exchange provisions don’t penalize states. They let states make tradeoffs between taxes, jobs, and insurance coverage.

2. Roughly half of states appear to consider those costs tolerable. Prior to 2014, eight states voluntarily imposed this supposedly coercive penalty on themselves.

3. This “deal” is comparable to what the Court allowed in NFIB v. Sebelius. In NFIB, the Court allowed states collectively to turn down Medicaid subsidies for as many as 16 million poor people. The exchange provisions permit states to do the same for 16 million higher-income residents.

I have no objection to the Court lowering the bar for demonstrating that cooperative federalism programs coerce states. But the Court will have to lower the bar quite a bit to find the ACA’s exchange provisions coercive.

If you aren’t a busy Supreme Court justice, or even if you are, read the whole thing.