Thursday, June 25, 2015
Supreme Court Upholds ACA Insurance Premium Subsidies
If the Supreme Court had ruled today the way the state of Indiana had urged it to hold in a case challenging the availability of health insurance premium subsidies to residents in states like Indiana which chose not to implement a state health care exchange under the Affordable Care Act, at least 180,000 Hoosiers would have lost their health insurance coverage. Those Hoosiers can breathe easier today because the Supreme Court in a 6-3 opinion authored by Chief Justice John Roberts ruled that Congress could not have intended to limit health insurance premium subsidies only to persons in states where state health exchanges had been implemented. The full opinion in King v. Burrell can be viewed here.
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"Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. "If at all possible, we must interpret the Act in a way that is consistent with the former, and avoids the latter."
Roberts made the same mistake twice in a row. It was most emphatically NOT his job to consider policy. It was his job to consider the Constitution and the law.
I'll leave you with a quote from Antonin Scalia's dissent:
"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.
obamacare is going to have to run its course and it will die on its own as premiums continue to ruse and fewer and fewer americans find it affordable and shortage of doctors increases. this entire law is a disaster, and as fewer get their insurance from employer, more are finding out just how UNaffordable it is.
nothing more than redistribution
“If at all possible, we must interpret the Act in a way that is consistent with the former, and avoids the latter.” This is the root of the problem. It gets back to Bork's IU seminal article published from IU in 1971 or so. Where did this stupid idea that Roberts embraces come from? It did not come from the Constitution. We are back to Lewis Carroll and the Chesire Cat, are we not?
By the way, Gary, you made quite an impression on the red head....
Those Hoosiers can breathe easier today
Maybe I can breathe easier today, Gary, but the last time I checked we still had $18 TRILLION in debt, & the ACA merely adds to that, as most govt programs do.
The original decision upholding the law's constitutionality was an abomination. I still believe the Chief Justice had been blackmailed over the sordid situation involving the Guatemalan adoption of his two children, which the New York Times had threatened to expose. Once the Court decided the law was constitutional, the public should be able to operate under that premise without fear of sudden upheaval, particularly in an area such as this where people's lives are at stake. For better or worse, the entire health care system has been adapted over the past few years in reliance on this law. If the Court had ruled that people living in states which did not set up health care exchanges couldn't receive subsidies, then that interpretation implicitly meant the entire law must fail a test of constitutionality, in addition to the death spiral it would have sent the entire health care system down. The national debt is entirely different concern. It will never be repaid. The day of reckoning on that is something most of us would rather not attempt to comprehend.
From Scalia's dissent...
“Words no longer have meaning if an Exchange that is not established by a State is ‘established by the State.’”
“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.”
“Today’s interpretation is not merely unnatural; it is unheard of.”
“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.”
“We should start calling this law SCOTUScare.”
Harsh words, and rightfully so. We have slipped much further down the slope. The courts are just another group of political hacks pretending to be righteous leaders. Like most everyone else in government, they are nothing but pretentious liars.
Scalia can get by calling other judges "pretentious liars." Those of us subject to the rules of the bar might lose our law license for saying such things.
Uber-RINO Establishment Republican Karl Rove, who has been wrong on most everything, foolishly advised Republicans on the Hill that a fight against Obamacare was a waste of time because Obamacare would fail of its own weight and then the Democrats who voted for it would be ridiculed and run out of office for a generation. We see how well that advice worked out. When have you ever seen a program passed by Congress (such as this) repealed? The words "just about never ever" come to mind.
This entire law, passed at midnight during Yuletide by deception, subterfuge, bribery and outright lies by Socialist Marxist Obama and his hench-minion left liberal Democrats, is sucking the energy out of what is left of private employment market.
Our Constitutional Republic is long dead; we've been herded into a socialist soft police state where there is a perpetual political ruling class and an habitual bureaucracy set to administer the laws the political class exempts itself from... such as Obamacare. That Roberts may have led the charge to make policy on the panel of old men and women we call SCOTUS is not a surprise at all.
With Independence Day approaching, I do wonder if King George III was really that bad. I say this agreeing with Gary on Roberts and blackmail but also semi-understanding the need for contortion in this particular ruling.
If this is what passes for judicial scholarship; anyone can be a judge on the "Supreme" Thwart. For that matter, in the arid absence of any such foundational scholarship (standards), does passing the bar mean anything, or of what value is it now?
If the highest level of that which was conceived as an honorable profession, is now characterized by malpractice; who needs education or standards to "accomplish" that?
At last evening's RFRA debate (IUPUI law school), the ACLU's Jane Henegar echoed the attitude of today's majority ACA opinion issued by SCOTUS; cultural animation of the Constitution in service to "aspiration," which however witting is actually the political asphyxiation of liberty.
The dirty little secret of law is that courts just make up whatever they want the outcome to be.
All those case reporters aren't worth they paper they're written on, because a court isn't bound by anything. Not law, not rule.
Courts just rule however they want and reverse-engineer the rationale.
Well, Gary, I wish that we'd truly attempted to address the debt & unfunded liabilities issue now instead of in the future.
With the same sex issue coming to the court, maybe I can marry my mother, brother, or sister, humm, come to think about it, the family dog looks cute!
Ridiculous as this sounds, the Supreme is opening up a can of worms beyond imagination!!
The Supreme Court is going to rule against gay marriage.
Regarding national debt, social security, Medicare... The longer we wait to fix the problem, the more painful the fix is going to be.
Members of Congress like attorney Susan Brooks, ostensible Republican sitting in a chair labelled "Indiana 5th Congressional District", and her attorney husband Republican Hoosier political hack David Brooks and their children, remain safe from Obamacare- unlike many of us hard working Americans FORCED from any choice we want to make regarding our personal health.
AT least I can rest easier knowing the David Brooks and Susan Brooks family remain free of the bondage of the insane Obamacare crap by this third rewriting of the ACA by alleged attorney John Roberts. Members of Congress exempted themselves from this tyranny.
Millions of people will keep their health insurance. Its a good thing. I have always considered myself fiscally conservative. We have a lot of boondoggle spending out there, particularly in defense, and Republicans are no better at reining in costs than Democrats. But it was a national tragedy and embarrassment to have so many without health insurance. I didn't vote for Obama. But I supported his fight to insure these people. And I'm glad the Supreme Court ruled the way they did. If the Republicans want people to believe they care about costs and money and debt then they have plenty of ways to do that before they go stripping millions of people of health insurance.
I agree with Anon 9:30 and the very few others who supported the Supreme Court ruling....this is a good thing...And for the lunatic fringe Obama hatin' crowd, please start getting serious.....have you ever heard of Legislative Intent? There is no way that the Congress intended that individuals enrolled through the Federal exchange would not qualify for a tax credit? That was not ever discussed, debated, or even considered. It goes against logic and reason to suggest otherwise -- it makes no sense. Roberts was correct in interpreting the intent to be that anyone enrolled would qualify for a subsidy....and for those naysayers who argue that premiums are rising, well the facts are otherwise -- they are certainly increasing, like everything else, but the rate of increase is mitigating...and for those who wish for the old system, let's not forget how unfair that was, along with the ridiculous premium increases we all had to endure. Obamacare is certainly not perfect, but the fact that millions of more now have health care is a public policy gain that should not be overlooked....
One final point: The GOP should be grateful for this ruling -- they would have been blamed for the chaos that would have resulted had the ruling gone the other way, and like the modern GOP that we have all come to know and despise, the GOP still has no plan for an alternative. At some point, the GOP will realize it needs a governing strategy if they are to regain even a modicum of credibility with the majority of citizens.....and that includes out dimwit governor.
health insurance is not health care. fewer doctors, longer wait times, and increase to our national debt are not results we can afford to accept to insure.
millions are being subsidized, but many more millions were forced into obamacare. all this law does is redistribute wealth, and its coming from middle class, not just the rich. meanwhile its not self sustaining. taxpayers are subsidizing the insurance companies as well because obama knows that without subsidy premiums will continue to rise.
the rate of premiums is going up but not as fast???? that's your defense of the law.
are you also forgetting that obama is subsidizing insurance companies so they aren't forced to raise premiums even more?
Anon 1:47, name one thing that is not going up. Groceries? Eggs? Gasoline even is rising again. But does the fact that 16 million more americans now have health coverage not matter for anything? And werent premiums rising before obamacare, at a faster rate?
And what is your alternative?
Anon 1;45', i have a policy purchased on the exchange, and there is not one scintila of a difference between my waiting times, access or anything related to access. Yes, it is a high deductible, but i am ok with that. My rates are actually about the same as before obamacare, but all i care about is that i am protected from a catastropic event, after i pay my high deductible...and that's how insurance should be.
In my opinion, the real culprit is not the insurance system, but rather the outrageous rates charged by doctors hospitals, drug companies, and medical equipment manufacturers. But that would involve our politicians rising up against the very organizations who have the pols in their back pockets....in indiana that means rising up against the iu health, eli lilly, cook medical, dupuy orthopedics, eyc etc. think that will ever happen?
Here's a suggestion for the GOP. Instead of railing against obamacare, how about tackling the $12 cans of sprites charged by hospitals, the ridiculous price of drugs, medical procedures, and the like. That might actually restore some credibility for a party that is controlled by bufoons.
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