The United States Department of Health and Human Services, along with the Internal Revenue Service, may be trying to declare the federal government as the 51st state of America, according to an editorial for The Wall Street Journal.

The law that is the Affordable Care Act, or at least the one Congress passed and the president signed in 2010, establishes state exchanges to implement the health care law and also authorizes HHS to establish federal exchanges if states opt-out. The law explicitly states that tax credits are only available to enrollees through the state exchanges, not the federal. But when over 30 states unexpectedly opted out, the IRS panicked.

WSJ reports:

In 2012, HHS and the Internal Revenue Service arrogated to themselves the power to rewrite the law and published a regulation simply decreeing that subsidies would be available through the federal exchanges too. The IRS devoted only a single paragraph to its deviation from the statute, even though the "established by a State" language appears nine times in the law's text. The rule claims that an exchange established on behalf of a state is a "federally established state-established exchange," as if HHS is the 51st state.

In a suit entitled Halbig v. Sebelius, plaintiffs are arguing against this lawlessness and are asking for one simple thing: for the administration to faithfully execute the ACA as written. However, according to the WSJ report, the Department of Justice issued a 28J letter effectively giving the federal government license to ignore the ruling:

[E]ven if the court finds that the Administration is acting illegally, it cannot strike down the IRS-HHS rule and the executive branch will continue to ignore both Congress's law and the law of the courts.

The 28J letter states:

For millions of people across the country, premium tax credits are not burdens to be avoided but federal benefits that they need to afford health insurance.