Working-class Americans could lose $36 billion if the latest Obamacare challenge prevails

Millions of America could lose billions of Obamacare dollars if the Supreme Court rules against the health-care law in a new legal challenge.

The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to take a new challenge to Obamacare that will focus on whether the health-care law's subsidies can go to federally run exchanges. Much of the ruling hinges on a grammatical technicality, as Vox's Adrianna McIntyre explained. But it could have a huge impact for people obtaining private health insurance on the federally run marketplaces.

A recent report from the Urban Institute and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found more than $36 billion in subsidies will be tied to the federal marketplaces in 2016, with the state-level impact ranging from nearly $145 million in North Dakota to nearly $4.8 billion in Florida.

Those are subsidies going to nearly 7.3 million people, according to the report. Without those tax credits, health insurance suddenly becomes a lot less affordable to millions of Americans — a testament to just how important this Supreme Court challenge is to Obamacare's success.

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