Thank you for your service for our country, Houcoogster.
(I mean the military service, not Ratting and Rolling!)
High Court To Hear Challenge To Health Law Subsidies
- Thread starter Yagents
- Start date
Thank you for your service for our country, Houcoogster.
(I mean the military service, not Ratting and Rolling!)
- 2,908
Normally in rigorous court examination the justices would reach conclusions about what the "law's architects" actually said based on their words and writings and other evidence on the record or at least have expected the lower court to have done that. If so, they would conclude the opposite- that the law's architects easily foresaw the possibility/probability of many states NOT BUILDING exchanges so they threatened them by specifically warning them that if they did not build their own exchange, there would be no tax credits.
The chief architect, who received 400,000 in compensation for drafting and speaking on behalf of Obamacare was Jonathan Gruber. If the justices reach their own conclusion about what the architects intended without ever looking at what they said and did, then your theory of what the court will/could do might apply. However, they would need to make the following words go away which were spoken and are on record by Jonathan Gruber, the alleged chief architect:
Gruber's words here:
What's important to remember politically about this is if you're a state and you don't set up an exchange, that means your citizens don't get their tax credits—but your citizens still pay the taxes that support this bill. So you're essentially saying [to] your citizens you're going to pay all the taxes to help all the other states in the country. I hope that that's a blatant enough political reality that states will get their act together and realize there are billions of dollars at stake here in setting up these exchanges. But, you know, once again the politics can get ugly around this. [emphasis added]
The government can argue that that may have been in the law and the words of the consultant but the members of Congress who voted on it never actually were up on the law or read it and just left it to the drones to write and then they voted on it. Not the zippiest of arguments. Good luck with that one.
This is a statutory interpretation issue rather than a constitutional issue so the court would be entirely justified in just telling Congress that if it frigged up in stating its intent then it needs to pass legislation clarifying it rather than asking the court to do tea leaf reading on something that is not a constitutional issue. Only problem there of course is that the membership of Congress has changed - but that is not theoretically a problem of the court.
If the subsidy on the fed exchange is shot down, states can also hustle around and do their own exchanges or write some contract with the feds to have them do it or to use their mechanism while theoretically retaining ownership by state- games like that - although most likely would not apply retroactively.
This subsidy issue is probably not a show stopper but it does give the republicans more credibility with voters when they say that the whole thing needs to be re-tinkered because it is a steaming pile of crap. Versus Obama's argument that there is no problem other than republican political motives to take shots at Obama and resistance by republicans at the state level to exchanges.
Take a look at a state like Oregon though to see the problem with the argument that everything is or would have been groovy had it not just been for conservative resistance and politicking. Oregon most likely has more Sasquatches than Republicans. Otherwise, everything everywhere is demotard. When Obama wanted to go with Obamacare they drank the kool aid as fast and as hard as they could. Built their own exchange, started pumping out goofy ads by the pantload, and paid Oracle big, big, big bucks to do the tech stuff on the exchange. Problem is the entire exchange shiite the bed with problems. Good luck arguing that the three republicans in the state torpedoed the whole thing. It is inherently flawed and the problems just keep coming.
Change you can believe in.
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well said Winter_123
Well said..
Reality is most of us dont like the ACA BUT it is for the good and bad here to stay. While many republicans may have used it as a tool for getting elected (I BTW am a conservative but not a registered republican) the reality is to repeal ACA would be political suicide. It is simply too entrenched.
Well said..
Reality is most of us dont like the ACA BUT it is for the good and bad here to stay. While many republicans may have used it as a tool for getting elected (I BTW am a conservative but not a registered republican) the reality is to repeal ACA would be political suicide. It is simply too entrenched.
You could run with that argument before all the policy cancellations and 40 - 300% rate increases but it becomes more difficult now that 70% of the population says this is crap.
In reality you have 6M that got their free cheese and like it. The other 250M or so hate it.
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More like 28M if you include the 8M off exchange QHPs, 11M medicaid/chip and 2M assorted others...(7.1M on the marketplace was the latest number from HHS as of 10/15)
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Winter posted
"This is a statutory interpretation issue rather than a constitutional issue so the court would be entirely justified in just telling Congress that if it frigged up in stating its intent then it needs to pass legislation clarifying it rather than asking the court to do tea leaf reading on something that is not a constitutional issue".
What would happen if they ruled this way? Would everything just chug along? How long would the court give them to act? Anything else you can think of regarding this scenario would be appreciated. I have hunch this just might be what they decide.
"This is a statutory interpretation issue rather than a constitutional issue so the court would be entirely justified in just telling Congress that if it frigged up in stating its intent then it needs to pass legislation clarifying it rather than asking the court to do tea leaf reading on something that is not a constitutional issue".
What would happen if they ruled this way? Would everything just chug along? How long would the court give them to act? Anything else you can think of regarding this scenario would be appreciated. I have hunch this just might be what they decide.
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Some of this is deja vu all over again.
Whether or not it is political suicide to try to repeal it (or rather to try to just bust it down and make it inoperable because it cannot be repealed) depends on whether there is an alternative plan or series or fixes to the broken parts being proposed by the republicans that is better. A well worn issue of course.
You can't just tell people that we have a broken frigging plan now and it is entrenched so we need to just leave it alone and accept it. Nor can you just tell people that everyone hates it so we are going to just bust it down more and make it all go away.
What a mess.
Pressure is on the republicans now to deliver an alternative but that should be considered an opportunity not a problem. Their track record in doing so is pretty dismal. Hillary of course is hoping that Obama care fails (pretty safe bet at this point) and that the republicans will just bitch and go in circles (pretty safe bet too but I will give em a couple months to unveil anything- if anything- they have been working on in the even they won. Otherwise, Hillary will be along with her "solutions." Right now the people are not up for her big government stuff but you bust Obamacare down so that neither Obamacare works or their old pre-Obamacare plan and it is going to be back to single payer, or public option deja vu all over again.
Of course that has always been the Saul Alinsky plan. Break the current system even more all while putting more demand on it and making more people dependent on it and then when it collapses put a full government plan in its place. And who has always been one of Saul Alinsky's biggest disciple's?
Doesn't have to be that way but Hillary is better at coming up a plan than the pubs are. Sigh.
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You're welcome and Thank you!
Can I get high five for Rattin and Rolling the 5 Veterans in their $20 mo. CSR Plans?
My 2 cents...why not leave Obamacare alone...allow underwritten Major Med plans again in each state and get rid of of tax penalty for not enrolling in ACA. I would think in a 1 or 2 years the ACA would be on life support with only people with chronic conditions left and others getting free coverage. Stop the subsidies unless you can prove chronic health condition. Then basically what you would have left is a national high risk pool. Then break up the pools by state. Let each state run their pool subsidized by Fed. There you go...fixed...
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Winter, that's exactly what I keep saying to anyone who will listen. Only a fool would kills thousands of people by stripping away their health insurance without having a viable alternative in place beforehand.
Apparently, some people in Congress are now wising up and will put the horse before the cart, where it should be. Senator's Rubio and Ryan are working to craft a replacement plan that both houses will pass. It's still in the early stages and won't be finalized until after the Supreme Court's APTC ruling in late Spring 2015. The S.C. ruling will enable the appropriate final pieces of the ObamaCare modification and/or replacement plan to be written.
The changes will be designed for implementation over time. Entire industries will need to adjust...just like they've been adjusting between March 23, 2010 and today.
ac
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