Supreme Court Could Gut Obamacare

[workinclasszero]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2014/11/07/supreme-court-could-gut-obamacare.html

The Supreme Court agreed Friday to review a challenge to the Affordable Care Act involving subsidies. The highest court in the land is taking a Republican-backed appeal that targeted the tax credits included under the national health-care overhaul. The tax credits help about 4 million Americans purchase coverage. A ruling blocking those credits could potentially dismantle Obamacare by rendering other provisions ineffective and destabilizing insurance markets.



Will our corporate owned and operated SCOTUS do a favor for the bagger party and nail the ACA to a cross so their reich wing friends can have plausible cop out??

[edhopper]

1. Why wouldn't they

Also expect the employer mandate to be repealed.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

4. They did allow the personal mandate to stand. nt

[edhopper]

5. But the employer one

Hurts their business buddies. And since they don't use logic or legal reasoning, they can do what they want.

[workinclasszero]

7. The next two years are going to be hell. /nt

[edhopper]

11. And that

Is an understatement.

[rtracey]

18. hmmmmm

and who's fault is that... I don't completely blame the democrats, because 2/3 of registered voters on both sides didn't vote. I blame it on the lazy-assed couch potatoes who decided its better to watch There Goes Honey BooBoo or whatever to getting up and voting..... will 2 years of total right-wing bullshit help the democrats in 2016....i really do think so, but for the next 2 years, hold your nose and just hope the veto pen doesn't run out of ink...

[Kablooie]

33. The veto pen doesn't work on the Supreme Court

The right is throwing more cases than ever at SCOTUS in order to tear down our government and cement in their world order.

If Ginsberg leaves the court for either retirement or health reasons we will really be in trouble.

[Kelvin Mace]

2. The only reason to take the unusual moves now

is to destroy it, though I really don't think the insurance companies will be very happy. This will be an interesting case to see if ideology trumps money.

[yeoman6987]

3. Probably

But it certainly was not a good idea to pass the thing without reading it. One of the readers would have noticed the discrepancy in the bill that could destroy ACA. It all comes down to one sentence and because nobody read the bill, it could be gone. Stunning!!!!!

[Nuclear Unicorn]

8. The RWers were having great sport circulating videos of some economist (from MIT I think)

and a purported architect of the bill saying the lack of federal subsidies was deliberate so as to incentivize the states to set up their own exchanges. Apparently they didn't anticipate so many states declining to set up exchanges. Perhaps what they really failed to properly vet is the state exchanges being optional.

[yeoman6987]

21. Well it was a horrible and unnecessary gamble

I think the Supreme Court will have to vote 9-0. It is basically illegal what is going on federally. It is going to be quite a ride no matter what.

[Rstrstx]

35. Gruber did not write the bill

The people who actually crafted the bill have made it very clear it was never their intention to deny subsidies to federal exchanges. When a document clocks in at 1000+ pages it's easy to find the smallest inconsistency here or there. The courts have seen such situations come up before and have decided the whole of the law needs to be looked at to determine if one sentence makes sense or not.

WAY too many people are listening to the right wing talking points of "it's CLEARLY in the law" and "Gruber is on video declaring the subsidies are only for the state" (and have you believe he practically wrote the law) while ignoring mountains of evidence to the contrary.

[Kingofalldems]

14. Prove that nobody read the bill.

You don't seem to like Democrats very much. Am I wrong?

[Darb]

17. That sounds talking pointish,

Republican talking pointish. You think that nobody read it? Did it write itself?

[yeoman6987]

22. I heard it from Nancy herself

I was in the room when she said it and fell off my chair in complete and utter shock.

[underpants]

27. King v. Burrell is about ONE sentence which normally is corrected later - all the time

http://mobile.nytimes.com/redirect?to-mobile=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2014%2F11%2F08%2Fupshot%2Fwhats-at-stake-in-supreme-courts-latest-health-care-case.html%3F_r%3D0%26referrer%3D&_r=0


King v. Burwell rests on a sentence in the law that many of its authors describe as a drafting error. The law says that subsidies should go to people who bought coverage “through an Exchange established by the State,” which the law’s challengers say means that the tax credits cannot be used in the federally run marketplaces. Whatever Congress’s original intention, that’s the sort of legislative issue that Congress could fix, not a constitutional problem with the structure of the law that would mean its permanent annihilation.

[ctaylors6]

28. not necessarily

Last edited Fri Nov 7, 2014, 06:29 PM - Edit history (2)

so cut and dried. You should read this:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelcannon/2014/08/07/halbig-critics-struggle-with-the-acas-legislative-history/

I don't think anyone can say with a straight face that the final bill was the result of an orderly drafting process. Plain text weighs heavily in statutory interpretation by courts. And this was not just a typo.

Edited to add: I don't think there are any constitutional issues here. Just legislative interpretation.

[Moondog]

6. Doing so would certainly let

a lot of pols off the hook.

[workinclasszero]

9. Exactly what I was thinking too

SCOTUS does the dirty deed for its wall street masters and the bagger party can throw up its hands and say its not out fault your grandma is dying of treatable cancer for lack of healthcare.

Blame it on the supremes! And they all get together and have a good laugh behind closed doors later.

Fucking randian swine!

[Moondog]

12. Yep.

[Stallion]

15. Who Says Wall Street Doesn't Like the ACA?

Insurance companies who were hesitant are jumping all in this year. The ACA expanded their customer pool by tens of millions. If the ACA goes down-the next step is single-payer which cuts the Insurance companies out

[MoonRiver]

10. I'm really starting to believe that America is determined to descend into third world status.

But, hey, the 1% will get filthy rich(er) in the process, so it's all good.

[AZ Progressive]

19. Not just third world, a new Dark Ages

Read this article: http://www.forbes.com/2011/05/25/decline-and-fall-of-the-american-empire.html

It makes a comparison to Rome before and after it fell:

"Since the tax revenues from a diminished empire could not meet such increased expenditures, the emperors started paying soldiers and suppliers in depreciated coinage. Credit and commerce collapsed under the resulting inflation and distrust, barter returned to poorer parts of the empire like northwestern Europe, and land values there plummeted. Peasants fled from soldiers and vagabonds foraging for food, the urban middle classes floundered, and the surviving towns and cities, barely hanging on, could no longer protect the countryside and its farms. Only the very rich–Roman senators, imperial generals and the like–had the diversified investments that allowed them to escape the poverty and dangers that engulfed virtually everyone else.

These wealthy Romans acquired huge tracts of land at bargain prices, becoming the owners of northwestern Europe’s most productive assets. They could offer protection and aid in return for loyal service, and desperate men flocked to their employment (mostly tenancy). The emperors now had to wheedle taxes and manpower from these great powers. The resulting bargains gradually sapped imperial power, and after the Vandals sacked Rome itself, in 455, the last emperor soon departed.

Northwestern Europe’s new social and economic structure consigned the vast majority of the population to miserably impoverished lives. The self-sufficient great landowners had little interest in maintaining roads, protecting those who were not employees or generating prosperity for others. Except in their own households, life was largely reduced to the terms of subsistence, and in the absence of a more widespread demand for goods and services, even the richest could no longer find or acquire luxuries that had once been commonplace."

[MoonRiver]

25. Sounds about right...

[Kablooie]

34. A feudal system is wonderful for the top lords. Why wouldn't that want it?

[jmowreader]

13. I don't think they will, but I've been wrong before

I think the Supremes would be very hesitant to rule against dismantling a tax credit - because environmentalists could use such a ruling as precedent when they went after tax breaks for the oil companies, PETA could use it as ammunition against meat processors, the unions could use it to shut down tax breaks for offshoring...

They might WANT to kill the tax break to help out their GOP buddies, but the insurance companies LIKE those tax breaks and they own a lot of Republicans.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

16. The case raises the issue of whether subsidies can be given to policyholders

in states that did not create their own exchanges. If the court rules against the ACA on this issue it will backfire badly on GOPer governors who did not let their states create exchanges - only the people in those states will lose their subsidies, and they will have only their dumbass Republican state government to blame. People in states with state exchanges (mostly Dem-controlled states) won't lose their subsidies. A decision against the national-exchange subsidies will end up hurting the GOP.

[geek tragedy]

20. Done deal. ACA is dead in red states.

People with preexisting conditions or unable to purchase insurance on the individual market in those states will have one option: move to a blue state.

[B Calm]

23. I thought they already ruled on the tax cuts in Obama Care. .

[ctaylors6]

24. They ruled on the personal mandate=a permissible tax

part. In other words, they said the penalty the people have to pay if they choose not to have insurance is a tax that is within Congress's constitutional taxing power to impose.

This line of cases is about the subsidies that policy holders receive (i.e. tax credits not tax payments). The text of the Affordable Care Act provides that the tax credits (i.e. subsidies) are to go to customers of exchanges “established by the state.” Many states elected to have the federal govt run the exchange rather than run one themselves. So the states without their own exchanges are saying that customers in those states are therefore not eligible for subsidies according to the plain text of the ACA.

It's also interesting and important to note that the majority of justices who upheld the personal mandate of the ACA upheld it on the basis of the taxing power. A majority said it was NOT within Congress's interstate commerce clause powers.

Hope that helps!

[enid602]

26. green light

Gutting or overturning an established government program will give the Right a green light to do the same with Medicare and SS.

[B Calm]

29. We have the money to send 1,500 more troops to Iraq, but no money

to reduce the high cost of health care.

[gmb92]

30. The timing is certainly suspicious

but no surprise given how partisan the Republican SCOTUS appointees are. The lawsuit is a joke, but it doesn't surprise me that Republican-appointed judges have ruled in its favor.

The effect of killing subsidies for the federally-run exchange is to rob citizens of 36 states of health coverage. Some of those states would immediately move to set up state exchanges (even minimal ones that use the federal exchange as a third party), but this would likely be confined to Democratic-run states. Most states that denied Medicaid expansion would probably deny a state-run exchange. Medicaid expansion, after all, costs states little (0% for 3 years then 10% of costs afterwards). One difference is their citizens would be ruthlessly stripped of health coverage subsidies they had been receiving for more than a year, so it's not without political risk.

I think SCOTUS was waiting until after the election as to not shake up expected Republican gains, and they wanted to ensure that voters in red states didn't punish their leaders for the disgraceful move of denying Medicaid expansion to its citizens at little cost to their states. This would give them more confidence that ruling to ax the subsidies won't ultimately cost red state leaders in 2016, making sure to get it done well before the election. Republicans are banking on Americans blaming Democrats, claiming they wrote an "unconstitutional" law, rather than blaming Republican SCOTUS hacks for the ruling, Republican Congresspersons who won't pass a simple wording change in the law to allow the federal subsidies, or Republican governors/lawmakers who choose not to set up a state exchange. And the mainstream press will back them every step of the way.

Republican appointees on the Supreme Court are nothing short of disgusting partisans with little respect for the law.

[ctaylors6]

31. The timing if you're interested

is here: http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/king-v-burwell/

Cert petition was filed July 31st. On Sept 2nd, SCt granted Obama administration request for 30 additional days to file response.

The timing doesn't look suspicious or wonky to me, but maybe I'm missing something?

[napkinz]

32. kick