According to a piece put up yesterday afternoon by Craig Bannister at CNS-News, Oklahoma was the first state to file a lawsuit in Federal court challenging the Obama administration’s arbitrary decision to subsidize, via the HealthCare.gov Federal exchange portal, health care insurance even in those states that did not choose to establish a state-level exchange.  Their suit was filed in 2012, and the first decision has now come down from the District Court level in eastern Oklahoma.

A key passage from Judge Ronald White’s DECISION in the case (known as Oklahoma versus Burwell) is as follows:

The court holds that the IRS rule is arbitrary, capricious, and abuse of discretion or otherwise not in accordance with law, pursuant to 5 U.S.C.706(2)(A), in excess of summary jurisdiction, authority or limitation, or short of statutory right, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 706(2)(C), or otherwise is an invalidation of the ACA [Affordable Care Act], and is hereby vacated.  The court’s order of vacatur is stayed, however, pending resolution of any appeal from this order.

The Obama administration will undoubtedly appeal, so the next step will be a consideration by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals (see map, below).  Since at least two conflicting decisions have already come down in other Circuit Courts, however, the case will almost certainly be folded into an appeal to the Supreme Court, probably in 2015.

According to the article, HERE, this loss for the Obama administration is only the latest of the 71 court losses they have experienced (out of the 78 decisions handed down so far), and altogether, over one hundred lawsuits have been filed.

For further information on certain other cases filed against ObamaCare, the Beckett Fund is a useful resource.