“The reason this matters,” Sargent writes, is that “highlighting the potential for such a SCOTUS decision to result in widespread disruptions and dire consequences — both for millions who might lose coverage and for the insurance and health care industry in these states — may figure heavily in the government’s strategy for winning the case.”
Basically, the government may attempt to convince the court that its interpretation of the law should be allowed because the disruption involved in ruling for the challengers might be too large.
This is not much of a legal theory or argument. If the administration’s approach to implementing Obamacare is not allowed by the law, then the court should rule against it, period. That’s true even if the disruption caused by ruling against the administration turns out to be quite large; indeed, the scale of the disruption would suggest the scale of the illegality.
Furthermore, ruling along these lines would set a terrible precedent. Allowing the administration to continue with an illegal implementation because stopping it would be disruptive would create incentives for this administration and others in the future to pursue illegal actions and then insulate themselves by finding ways to make ending those actions disruptive.
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