When a federal judge recently ruled that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional, many in the media were caught off guard. Little attention had been paid to the case, which was brought by the attorneys general of 20 states and by the Texas Public Policy Foundation (representing individual clients who have been harmed by Obamacare).

But when U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor handed down his ruling, he suddenly had everyone’s attention. What has followed has been an exercise in opinion-forming and prediction-making—based on too little information and even less understanding of how we got here.