Basically, just another day at the White House?
Posted on 07/02/2014 6:55:14 PM PDT by Perdogg
Remember the Halbig case? If not, catch up right now by re-reading this post from January, written after a D.C. district court judge ruled in Obama’s favor. O-Care is a famously complex law but the lawsuit that could end up demolishing it is surprisingly simple. In a nutshell, there’s a line buried deep in the statutory text that says federal subsidies for insurance premiums will be available to anyone who buys a plan on “an Exchange established by the State.” Question: Does Healthcare.gov, the exchange built by the federal government after 34 states refused to build their own exchanges, qualify as an “Exchange established by the State”? Or do only state exchanges qualify?
(Excerpt) Read more at hotair.com ...
This would end Obamacare and then what?
Under this regime (and John Roberts) the actual text of the law has no meaning. God only knows how this court will rule. Could be by the constitution, could be by the pen and phone technique.
uh where have you been for the two years dude? :)
“In Michigan vs. Bay Mills Indian Community, for example, Justice Elena Kagan noted that “this court does not revise legislation … just because the text as written creates an apparent anomaly as to some subject it does not address.” “
I call complete BS on this.
The court revised Obamacare legislation when Roberts changed what the legislation called a “penalty” to a “tax.
Basically, just another day at the White House?
They use whichever logic determines the outcome they want to achieve. You know that.
Scouts must reverse its erroneous ruling on the constitutionality of ocare or else the people will never be safe from another overreach.
Boy, Cub, or Girl?
*snicker*
The decision will hinge on what the meaning of ‘is’ is .... oops, I mean what the meaning of ‘by’ is.
I know what the word ‘by’ means when used in passive construction. It’s a simple word derived from Old English and is used to indicate the “agent” who accomplishes something. So something established ‘by a state’ simply means created/established/built “BY THAT STATE”. What could be clearer? What could be simpler? What could mean ONLY that one thing?
Well, we’ll have to wait to see what the court says and, next year, what the Supreme Court says.
Spellcheck was bad enough — but not the d-mn devices want to decide for themselves what word to put in there.
(I know — I still should have proofread)
Good question because the Republocrats as well as the Obamocrats think big government in general and socialized medicine in particular is the cat's meow.
The fight is just beginning (I feel like John Paul Jones).
Not enough good guys in the Tea Pary and elsewhere talking up the clear, obvious alternative to socialism staring them is the face: THE FREE MARKET ECONOMY which made America the wealthiest country in the world.
“Question: Does Healthcare.gov, the exchange built by the federal government after 34 states refused to build their own exchanges, qualify as an “Exchange established by the State”?
Yes. The feds will say they are the state.
The challenge was initially written off by some as a fool’s errand because there’s a lack of evidence that the Democrats who crafted and passed the Affordable Care Act intended to block subsidies on the federal exchange, which was designed as a backstop on behalf of the states. (They’ve signed a brief saying as much.) But the challengers seized on an ambiguity in the language of the statute which says the subsidies are to be provided by “an Exchange established by the State.”
I recall the crafting of ACA vividly. The Feds could not DEMAND that States create exchanges per a Supreme Court ruling, so the ACA authors came up with a carrot and some sticks to force them to anyway.
The carrot was that the Feds would pay for the cost of the expanded Medicaid for the first 3 years for States that created an exchange (Wheee ... which States would turn down free money?)
The “Sticks” were: if a State did not create an exchange, the Feds would not pay the Obamacare subsidies for residents in that State (thus hurting the employees in that State); and the Feds would withdraw ALL Medicaid funding for that State.
An early lawsuit by a State led to the Supreme Court ruling that the Feds could NOT cut off all Medicaid funding if the State did not create an exchange (i.e., the Supremes broke this stick).
States then began evaluating whether it was in their best interest to create an Exchange or not, because the big stick of withdrawing medicaid funding was broken. Eventually 36 States decided that they were better off not expanding medicaid, and decided against creating an Exchange.
The Democrats were then backed into a corner — they couldn’t allow 36 States to not have Obamacare subsidies; so they changed their tune and said that they really really didn’t mean that there would be no subsidies for States covered by the Federal Exchange, even though the ACA said so explicitly.
HHS was then presented with a problem — they had to build an Exchange to cover the residents of 36 States plus DC, and this resulted in the Obamacare Website fiasco (had States created their own exchanges, the HHS website for DC only would have been a much smaller problem - fewer people signing up, coverage only for DC, not a variant for each of 36 States).
The IRS was then tasked to create a rule which penalized employers in 36 States without State Exchanges if any of their employees accepted an Obamacare subsidy. Hence the lawsuit — how can the IRS have a rule that gives subsidies to employees in a State without a State Exchange (and thus penalizes the employer) when the law in plain English says subsidies will only be given to employees in States which have created a State Exchange.
Having stayed at the Holiday Inn Express last night, my legal opinion is that legally this is cut and dried: the IRS Rule (regulation) explicitly contradicts the plain language of the law itself. Without the IRS rule, there is no enforcement, and the States can tell HHS to go fly a kite. We will see tomorrow whether the Federal Judges agree with me.
If you want to have fun, go to SCOTUSBlog and look at how Obama’s lawyer tied himself into knots trying to argue that the plain language of ACA doesn’t mean what it says (”Are you going to believe me, or your lying eyes?”)
It gave me a spontaneous giggle.
Not many of those happen these days and I am grateful for your arrogant spellchecker.
:)
Thanks for the informative post.
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