it was clear that the words in Section 36B should not be treated the way the plaintiffs argued. If subsidies were provided to HHS Exchanges, it would gut Section 1311's preference for state-run Exchanges, concluded Mr. Carvin.

Government. Solicitor General Verrilli also began by discussing standing and noted that the issue of standing was dependent on incomes and obligations from the 2014 tax year. However, Solicitor General Verrilli made it clear he was raising the issue of standing and merely trying to provide information as the Court asked about it at the beginning of Mr. Carvin's arguments. He then went on to the merits of the case and argued that the interpretation of the statute by King and the other plaintiff's "produces an incoherent statute that doesn't work, andsecond, our reading is compelled by the Act's structure and design." Going on to describe King's interpretation of the statute as a "mockery" of the express promise of state flexibility and creates death spirals in the insurance industry that PPACA as a whole was designed to avoid. He concluded "That cannot be the statute that Congress intended."

Justice Scalia disagreed with the Congressional intent suggested by Solicitor General Verrilli, positing that it might not be what Congress intended, but it might be what Congress wrote. Solicitor General Verrilli provided a hypothetical in which a statute would require a state to construct an airport, and if it does not, the federal government will. If there were also a statute saying airplanes could only land at airports constructed by the state,