The decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in Halbig v. Burwell, announced Tuesday, is a stunning blow to Obamacare and the Obama administration.

Judge Thomas Griffith’s majority opinion ruled that Obamacare — the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — means what it says. Obamacare subsidies are available to consumers in states that set up state health care exchanges, just as the statute specifically authorizes. But they are not available to consumers in states — 36 of them — which did not set up state health care exchanges but allowed federal exchanges there instead, in accordance with the Act. Nowhere does the Act authorize subsidies in such states.