Another broker friend of mine lamented the corner into which the Republicans have painted themselves. A Supreme Court loss would be one more in a long line of defeats, with the risk of appearing bitter – if not outright obsessed – increasing with each new skirmish. A win translates into a pyrrhic victory, throwing millions off of the exchanges (presuming they can't pay their premiums without the disputed subsidies). Suddenly, Republicans are the bad guys. And every sad story that makes the evening news features the local GOP congressman as the villain. And don't think the media won't play that up.

Of course, Republicans can't turn around and extend the subsidies without looking like bleating hypocrites. And their base would certainly remind them of that next year.

(Granted, this all presupposes that the loss of subsidies will make premiums unaffordable. That's debatable. According to tax titan H&R Block, more than half of PPACA customers this year are paying back their subsidies anyway, slashing the average tax return by nearly 20 percent.)

But the GOP doesn't need Stephen Hawking – or his Speak n Spell – to solve this puzzle. But it does require getting over the ideological battle – at least in the short term. All they have to do is convince the red state governors to drop HealthCare.gov and start their own exchanges, thus saving the subsidies. And Republicans in Congress can preserve their position on subsidies while dodging the media tar and feathering.

At that point, it then becomes a larger battle to address the economics of the subsidies themselves, and the long-term sustainability of handing out tax relief like foreign aid. The problem is, we're stuck with this, so the best thing we can do – electorally and morally – is to bandage the wound – and not cut off the leg.

Finally, it's worth pointing out how screwed up we all are when it comes to subsidies in general – and, no, I'm not talking about farmers, oil companies or even big pharma, which consume roughly 5 percent of the federal budget. No, I'm talking about general health care subsidies.

A recent Economist/YouGov poll shows that – on average – more than 80 percent of Americans don't think their health care is subsidized by the federal government. But, as Vox reports, that's crap. Older Americans have Medicare. The poor have Medicaid. And for those of us with jobs, we have our employers' health plans – subsidized by generous tax breaks.