Have you seen the people we put into office? God help us if they were charged with writing a Constitution.
D.C. Circuit guts ObamaCare
- Thread starter DinoDoc
- Start date
Have you seen the people we put into office? God help us if they were charged with writing a Constitution.
May I ask what exactly is flawed in the Constitution that applies here? Congress passes a law. The law explicitly spells out what may be done and what may not be done. President's executive branch blows off law. Court says "hey now, law says you can do this but you cannot do that, so stop doing that as per the law."
Everything worked exactly as it should have. Well, except for the executive branch basically deciding the law didn't need to be followed and they could to whatever the hell they please. That's why they're being sued by Mr orange skin, btw.
GoodSarmatian
Jokerfied Western Male
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2006
- Messages
- 9,408
Yeah, I kind of jumped the gun. That was mostly my knee-jerk reacton without reading the details. The flaws in the Constitution don't really aply in the story.
I was wondering how that conversation got in here.
Let's play this out. Assume the DC Circuit's holding wins over the opposite holdings from other circuits. 36 States are free from Obamacare's mandate and any tax subsidies. That also means these States face huge increases in premiums without any tax assistance. I believe many of these States are also among the poorest states with high incidences of healthcare related bankruptcy's. Since the ruling does not gut provisions covering things like minimum deductibles or pre existing condition restrictions or other coverage issues that providers say are leading to rate hikes, I doubt you see the "free market" of premium rates bend to match this stark reality and make individual rates more affordable. So even younger healthy residents of these states are highly likely to wind up with much, much less affordable coverage and thus more financial risk in case of health issues. And getting out of that hole involves...setting up a State exchange.
Does this, in the long run, spur these States to adopt the exchanges they vigorously oppose anyway?
Does this, in the long run, spur these States to adopt the exchanges they vigorously oppose anyway?
Right. And in both cases I think you wind up where you started, i.e. with a mandate and subsidies. So to me this is temporary intentionally inflicted pain for a purely political motive.
Repeal isn't going to happen. Lower premiums and costs are not going to happen. Whether we like it or not the healthcare reform train left the station and we have to work within this nee ACA system.
This is something I hadn't considered before if the DC opinion stands: Halbig v. Burwell Would Free More Than 57 Million Americans From The ACA's Individual & Employer Mandates
Can someone with more legal education than I possess comment on the accuracy of this argument?
Can someone with more legal education than I possess comment on the accuracy of this argument?
This is what we are talking about now. Like, in the past 3 or 4 posts.
The error that author is making is rather important and he only obliquely references it: premiums are going up, healthcare costs are going up, and subsidies (and indirectly the mandate) are the mechanism to counteract this problem.
He disingenously states that losing the mandate does not directly create a rise in premiums, which os true since the IRS does not control your premium rates. Private insurers do and they are raising your premiums. And so he admits almost an aside that it will eliminate the subsidy designed to offset that rising cost, but then goes onto argue that even so, hey look at all these states that can "free" themselves from the mandate! (And oh by the way thus subject themselves to huge increases in healthcare costs...)
Farm Boy
I hope you dance
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2010
- Messages
- 28,269
Random ass rulings are a quirk of an independent judiciary. If they didn't come up from time to time I would have serious doubts as to whether or not the courts actually have latitude meaningful enough to do their job (as) properly (as they can).
Well that's better than a kick in the teeth, isn't it?
ugh, what a boring trite piece of "political common sense"
This explains why medical costs are so much higher in other developed countries. All of those subsidies.
SMARM
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
What I was referring to was how all these random laws are getting in the way of a healthcare program working well. All this "interstate tax this" and "commerce that" and "whatever this". The citizens of the country and their health should be at the top of the priority - and all these pesky little details should not be getting in the way of anything. That they are getting in the way in such a significant way is telling me that something just isn't "set up right", something basic, fundamental. It's not constitutional to have universal heathcare? Well, maybe the constitution is flawed, then.
I can't wait for the case where the Supreme Court says that a state exchange can have a religion and thus allow state exchanges to opt out of things where they have their facts wrong but their superstitions right.
onejayhawk
Afflicted with reason
I hope this theory has been well refuted. The clear intent is for the subsidies to apply to the 51 (envisioned) exchanges. There is no typo. The administration is handicapped by the debate, which clearly shows the legislative intent to apply this to the state exchanges. The flaw in the logic, at that time, was in assuming there would be 51 exchanges.
That is not playing it out. That is going one more step. Playing it out is that SCOTUS applies the language as written, sending it back to Congress.
J
SCOTUS doesn't "send it back to Congress" - they rule and Congress chooses to act or not act based on that. A SCOTUS ruling would have zero effect on the state exchanges in place. The non-exchange states would feel the pressure illram is talking about.
The legislative intent was affordable healthcare for all Americans. There was no legislative intent to deprive citizens in states with federally run exchanges of the core benefit of the ACA--i.e., affordable and universal healthcare coverage.
Link.
As to your second point, what JR said. SCOTUS does not send it anywhere. They just agree or disagree with the ruling. If they agree, we have a problem that we may or may not get a legislative fix for.
