Posted on 06/25/2015 1:47:56 PM PDT by markomalley
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of the Obama Administration in King V. Burwell that the Internal Revenue Service may extend subsidies to health insurance coverage purchased through exchanges established by the federal government despite the language of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that such subsidies were limited to states.
Associate Justice Scalia, whose dissents are always a fun read, was openly disdainful of the reasoning used by the majority to arrive at its conclusion. Here are 21 passages that capture his disappointment.
1) “The Court holds that when the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act says ‘Exchange established by the State’ it means ‘Exchange established by the State or the Federal Government.’ That is of course quite absurd, and the Court’s 21 pages of explanation make it no less so.”
2) “This case requires us to decide whether someone who buys insurance on an Exchange established by the Secretary gets tax credits. You would think the answer would be obvious—so obvious there would hardly be a need for the Supreme Court to hear a case about it. In order to receive any money under §36B, an individual must enroll in an insurance plan through an ‘Exchange established by the State.’ The Secretary of Health and Human Services is not a State. So an Exchange established by the Secretary is not an Exchange established by the State—which means people who buy health insurance through such an Exchange get no money under §36B.”
3) “Words no longer have meaning if an Exchange that is not established by a State is ‘established by the State.’”
4) “Under all the usual rules of interpretation, in short, the Government should lose this case. But normal rules of interpretation seem always to yield to the overriding principle of the present Court: The Affordable Care Act must be saved.”
5) “The Court interprets §36B to award tax credits on both federal and state Exchanges. It accepts that the ‘most natural sense’ of the phrase ‘Exchange established by the State’ is an Exchange established by a State. Ante, at 11. (Understatement, thy name is an opinion on the Afford- able Care Act!) Yet the opinion continues, with no semblance of shame, that ‘it is also possible that the phrase refers to all Exchanges—both State and Federal.’ Ante, at 13. (Impossible possibility, thy name is an opinion on the Affordable Care Act!)”
6) “Today’s interpretation is not merely unnatural; it is unheard of. Who would ever have dreamt that ‘Exchange established by the State’ means ‘Exchange established by the State or the Federal Government’?”
7) … “’State’ means ‘each of the 50 States and the District of Columbia.’ 42 U. S. C. §18024(d). Because the Secretary is neither one of the 50 States nor the District of Columbia, that definition positively contradicts the eccentric theory that an Exchange established by the Secretary has been established by the State.”
8) “It is bad enough for a court to cross out ‘by the State’ once. But seven times?”
9) “It is probably piling on to add that the Congress that wrote the Affordable Care Act knew how to equate two different types of Exchanges when it wanted to do so. The Act includes a clause providing that ‘[a] territory that . . . establishes . . . an Exchange . . . shall be treated as a State’ for certain purposes. §18043(a) (emphasis added). Tellingly, it does not include a comparable clause providing that the Secretary shall be treated as a State for purposes of §36B when she establishes an Exchange.”
10) “Faced with overwhelming confirmation that ‘Exchange established by the State’ means what it looks like it means, the Court comes up with argument after feeble argument to support its contrary interpretation. None of its tries comes close to establishing the implausible con- clusion that Congress used ‘by the State’ to mean ‘by the State or not by the State.’”
11) “The Court’s next bit of interpretive jiggery-pokery involves other parts of the Act that purportedly presuppose the availability of tax credits on both federal and state Exchanges.”
12) “Pure applesauce.”
13) “For its next defense of the indefensible, the Court turns to the Affordable Care Act’s design and purposes.”
14) “Having gone wrong in consulting statutory purpose at all, the Court goes wrong again in analyzing it.”
15) “Perhaps sensing the dismal failure of its efforts to show that ‘established by the State’ means ‘established by the State or the Federal Government,’ the Court tries to palm off the pertinent statutory phrase as ‘inartful drafting.’”
16) “The Court’s decision reflects the philosophy that judges should endure whatever interpretive distortions it takes in order to correct a supposed flaw in the statutory machinery. That philosophy ignores the American people’s decision to give Congress ‘[a]ll legislative Powers’ enumerated in the Constitution. Art. I, §1. They made Congress, not this Court, responsible for both making laws and mending them. This Court holds only the judicial power—the power to pronounce the law as Congress has enacted it. We lack the prerogative to repair laws that do not work out in practice, just as the people lack the ability to throw us out of office if they dislike the solutions we concoct. We must always remember, therefore, that ‘[o]ur task is to apply the text, not to improve upon it.’”
17) “More importantly, the Court forgets that ours is a government of laws and not of men. That means we are governed by the terms of our laws, not by the unenacted will of our lawmakers.”
18) What a parody today’s decision makes of Hamilton’s assurances to the people of New York: ‘The legislature not only commands the purse but prescribes the rules by which the duties and rights of every citizen are to be regulated. The judiciary, on the contrary, has no influence over . . . the purse; no direction . . . of the wealth of society, and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL but merely judgment.”
19) “Having transformed two major parts of the law, the Court today has turned its attention to a third. The Act that Congress passed makes tax credits available only on an ‘Exchange established by the State.’ This Court, however, concludes that this limitation would prevent the rest of the Act from working as well as hoped. So it rewrites the law to make tax credits available everywhere. We should start calling this law SCOTUScare.”
20) “Perhaps the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will attain the enduring status of the Social Security Act or the Taft-Hartley Act; perhaps not. But this Court’s two decisions on the Act will surely be remembered through the years. The somersaults of statutory interpretation they have performed (‘penalty’ means tax, ‘further [Medicaid] payments to the State’ means only incremental Medicaid payments to the State, ‘established by the State’ means not established by the State) will be cited by litigants endlessly, to the confusion of honest jurisprudence. And the cases will publish forever the discouraging truth that the Supreme Court of the United States favors some laws over others, and is prepared to do whatever it takes to uphold and assist its favorites.”
21) “I dissent.”
Scalia is a treasure. Too bad he is from another place and time, and there are no more like him.
As far as those burns go, yeah, they make ya feel good but they amount to nothing more than flipping off the guy who kills you right before he kills you.
America is now fundamentally changed, and Obama was not the only agent of change, he was one of many.
I think there was a typo in Scalia’s opinion.
Isn’t it SCROTUMcare?
jiggery-pokeryThat is both racist and misogynist. This dissent must be erased from the law books.
You want the blame to go to the Supreme Court? Maybe the dissent was meant to do just that...
Scalia is basically accusing the Court of fraud. Scalia knows that pressure is being applied from outside and is stating as much.
I think everyone on that court knows Roberta will vote however Obama tells him to.
Whenever Obama gives a statement BEFORE the ruling comes in you already know that Obama is making sure he gets what he wants..this is the second time its happened..first time with Obamacare, Obama gave a speech about how the Supreme Court should “Do the right thing” you know he has the goods on Roberts, he’s blackmailing him with something..and just a few weeks ago, Obama did it again, sending another message to the Supreme Court about Obamacare, so I knew then that we would be screwed, Obama owns these people, they do what he tells them to do
I know he thinks he’s something more, but Obama is a mere symptom of what ails us.
Either that...or we have six Supreme Court justices who can’t read and understand plain English. Not sure which is actually worse.
THe SCOTUS has surrendered it’s moral authority and is now nothing more than a political arem of the tyranny being imposed from DC.
They are no longer relevant, and they are no longer to be respected as the arbiters of constitutionality of laws.
So simple question.... since the SCOUS had ruled that
“Exchange established by the State’ it means ‘Exchange established by the State or the Federal Government.’”
They what verbage must one use to have Exchange established by the State’ means ‘Exchange established by the State”....only
I mean in this Freudian craziness the Supreme Court is now engaged in their language.....sometimes a cigar is just a cigar
And sometimes we do need to write law were a state needs to be just a state ....seems it’s now impossible to actually legal express that idea...
really do you have any doubt at all that they will not stand reason and logic on and see her on the gay marriage will win tomorrow anything can be anything they just deam to be that's the way of tyrants....
today was a 2 Plus 2 equals 5 moment and tomorrow will be a 2 Plus 2 equals 5 moment.... ...whatever the state says something means...that what it means
Progress ..All.SCOTUS ruling now are exclusively in Newspeak
really do you have any doubt at all that they will not stand reason and logic on its head with gay marriage tomorrow anything?.... can be anything they just deem to be that's the way of tyrants....
today was a 2 Plus 2 equals 5 moment and tomorrow will be a 2 Plus 2 equals 5 moment.... ...whatever the state says something means...that what it means at that moment until they decide it means something different
Progress ..All.SCOTUS ruling now are exclusively in Newspeak
Scalia is a brilliant man.
We all need to start calling it SCOTUS-Care. That will keep the issue of an unjust court in the public mind. Every time the term is used it will remind everyone of the fact that the Supremes ignored the language of the law and simply chose to enforce something other than what was written.
Established law. How cool is that?
Yep, sign them up for Summer School.
She may come up with calling SCOTUS the Death Panel for the Constitution.
Yep, now they have a Precedent and the power of Established Law....
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