Case Against The D.C. Court's Halbig Ruling Crumbles

Investor's Business Daily ^ | 07/30/2014 | IBD Staff

[IBD editorial writer]

The more ObamaCare backers try to attack the D.C. Circuit Court's decision that limits subsidies to state-run exchanges, the more it looks like the two judges on that panel got it right.

[bert]

The situation gets murky because of the intentional stirring up of the mud

But...... looks like Obamacare is toast because the intent of Congress was to influence the establishment and implementation of state exchanges.

Barack Obama is saved....... it will be the SCOTUS’s fault.

[randita]

The law says what it says - intentions are irrelevant.

The more I read about the Halbig decision, the more I’m convinced if it gets to SCOTUS, they’ll just let the DC Circuit decision stand (that’s if the en banc panel upholds the three judge panel decision).

[randita]

The only argument being advanced by the Obmacare proponents is, “it was our intent that everybody who needs subsidies gets them”.

In earlier versions of the bill, everybody who needed them, got subsidies. Somewhere along the line, that was purposefully changed.

Shouldn’t there be minutes (audio/video) of the Obamacare sausage making sessions that could be reviewed to see when/why the change was made? FOIA stuff?

[djf]

Regardless of the details, Ocare is a tax. A tax on life.

It is therefore unconstitutional.

[bert]

What I remember are Neil Cavuto’s repeated videos of the closed door. The room behind the door produced the final negotiations and not a whisper or scrap of notes ever made it past the closed door.

Neil also had a telephone on his desk but no one ever returned his calls.

[FlipWilson]

Doesn’t matter if they got it right. Harry Reid went nuclear and packed that court with far left political operatives. Those operatives see their job as justifying whatever a democrat controlled federal goveremt proposes and opposing whatever a republican controlled federal government proposes. En Banc this Court will twist itself into knots to save Obamacare. In doing so the law won’t matter one wit to them.

[RightFighter]

I have actually thought for some time that he WANTS the courts to overturn Obamacare. I think he was honestly surprised that the SC upheld the tax/penalty issue. On this issue of subsidies to federal exchange recipients, his administration's Department of Health and Human Services recently sent a letter to Puerto Rico in which they told the Puerto Rican government that a US territory doesn't qualify as a "state" and therefore major provisions of Obamacare do not apply to Puerto Rico and other US territories. It seems that HHS is providing more evidence to the plaintiffs in these lawsuits that a "state" must be, in fact, a STATE in order for the state-based provisions of Obamacare to apply, where those provisions clearly indicate that they apply to a state exchange and not the federal exchange. If his administration wanted to bolster their argument, they would have determined that "clearly" the Congress intended for residents of US territories to enjoy the same benefits as residents of other states, and therefore the intent of the Congress was to include US territories anywhere the word "state" was used. In claiming the opposite, it seems to me that Obama is showing his hand and trying to undermine his own law.

Letter to Puerto Rico