D.C. Circuit guts ObamaCare

[DinoDoc]

ObamaCare architect explained in 2012 video why only state exchanges pay subsidies

Link to video.

What’s important to remember politically about this is if you’re a state and you don’t set up an exchange, that means your citizens don’t get their tax credits—but your citizens still pay the taxes that support this bill. So you’re essentially saying [to] your citizens you’re going to pay all the taxes to help all the other states in the country. I hope that that’s a blatant enough political reality that states will get their act together and realize there are billions of dollars at stake here in setting up these exchanges. But, you know, once again the politics can get ugly around this.

 

[DinoDoc]

How in the heck do you inflate a circuit court overturning an IRS interpretation of an administrative rule into 'guts Obamacare'?

I would have thought it was obvious.
In the states that don’t establish exchanges, the most likely outcome is a death spiral. For one thing, without the subsidies, fewer people would be subject to the mandate, because the cost of a policy would become “unaffordable” as the Internal Revenue Service defines it for the purposes of assessing mandate penalties. Even if that weren’t the case, without the subsidies, a lot of people would find it cheaper just to pull out and pay the penalties. The most likely people to do this? Healthy youngsters paying more in premiums than they get in health services. If they exit the exchanges, premiums will rise, and the markets will spiral downhill.
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-07-23/questions-for-obamacare-now

Following up on your next post: Do you really think if this program fails spectacularly that there is going to be the public appetite to give the government a bigger bite at the apple given the unpopularity and problems Obamacare has faced?

 

[illram]

Gruber's speech was given prior to the IRS rule and he has since then stated the exact opposite opinion, so at best what we have is a very smart economist saying something dumb in 2012.

Gruber and Jost both say the interpretation conservatives are peddling has nothing to do with congressional intent. There is language scattered throughout the bill, Jost says, that refers to state-established exchanges, but as a whole, it's obvious that the law treats state and federal exchanges equally. "If you don't know anything about reading statutes, you assume that the way courts do it is by taking a sentence here and a sentence there," he says. "But if you look at it in context, the whole statute hangs together." If Cannon's interpretation is right, Jost says, it would mean that Congress wrote "the law to set up federal exchanges and then said they can't do anything." [Mother Jones, 1/24/13, via Media Matters]

Link

From the same website, explaining how legislators filed briefs in the Halbig case emphasizing the correct interpretation of the law: that state and federal exchanges were entitled to subsidies and mandates.

However, there's no need to guess congressional intent given the law was passed by Congress four years ago. In fact, seven high-ranking Democrats who helped craft Obamacare, as well as dozens of state lawmakers, filed a brief in the case to explain the true intent of the law.

"The purpose of the tax credit provision was to facilitate access to affordable insurance through the Exchanges -- not, as Appellants would have it, to incentivize the establishment of state Exchanges above all else, and certainly not to thwart Congress's fundamental purpose of making insurance affordable for all Americans," they wrote. [CBSNews.com, 7/8/14]

Reliance on intent slices both ways; contrary opinions to Halbig show that the conservative argument is just as, if not more reliant on guessing intent than a plain reading of the entire law.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Following up on your next post: Do you really think if this program fails spectacularly that there is going to be the public appetite to give the government a bigger bite at the apple given the unpopularity and problems Obamacare has faced?

Well, having seen plenty of 'Obamacare is dead' announcements this one just didn't seem all that strong.

As to the next question...let's consider alternatives in the event of 'spectacular failure'.

Reinstate the previously existing system. Millions of people who have had healthcare for the past while...it's just cancelled like you never had it. If you have ongoing treatment, like stitches to take out next week from a surgery last week, tough. People who left their high priced workplace plan for a cheaper plan through a state exchange, well if your workplace plan won't take you back, tough. Insurance companies with contracts to provide insurance that expect to continue being paid, if the client says 'oh that was just for Obamacare' their contract is void. I could go on (and on and on and on) but it should be obvious that is not going to work.

So...

Get government out of the health insurance business completely. The ACA failed and that was our last hurrah. Americans, you are on your own. Well, except medicare, can't touch that. Oh, and you veterans that we have a contractural obligation to. And there is that bit of messiness that comes from the fact that hospitals aren't allowed to just run amok like some sort of back room telemarketing operation, because medical bankruptcies, malpractice suits, and a half dozen other well trodden paths connect them to the nation's courtrooms, and of course there's the FDA and the pharmaceutical companies. Not to mention that medical insurers have very high priced lobbyists and significant input. Again this goes on and on but the bottom line is no the US government (who is by the way the nations largest single buyer of health care services) is not going to be able to just wash their hands of the whole situation.

So...come up with a plan...fast. The ACA was tremendously complex, but it took forty years to come up with so no surprise there. What else have we got? The rest of the world has something that seems to work, let's gin up something based on that real quick before the turds blowing off the fan bury Washington completely. Yep, single payer. It's the only option at that point, like it, hate it, or lump it.

 

[DinoDoc]

Reliance on intent slices both ways; contrary opinions to Halbig show that the conservative argument is just as, if not more reliant on guessing intent than a plain reading of the entire law.

The only thing we can really rely on to divine intent is the product passed by Congress. If Congress had wanted Federally run exchanges to be able to give out subsidies, they could have easily included language to that effect. The fact they didn't is all the evidence needed. If it was a mistake as the government claims, It isn't the responsibility or the right of the executive branch to fix it.

FTR: I only posted the video a) for the amusement value it provides and b) to counter all of the arguments I heard in this thread that none of the laws architects intended the scenario the plaintiffs allege. This shows that clearly wasn't the case.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

FTR: I only posted the video a) for the amusement value it provides and b) to counter all of the arguments I heard in this thread that none of the laws architects intended the scenario the plaintiffs allege. This shows that clearly wasn't the case.

I didn't read through all the pages, but anyone who thinks this isn't intended hasn't read the ACA. Yes, screwing states that don't comply is part of the deal. This is far from the first example of it, and probably won't be the last.

This has been common knowledge throughout the process, as we watched blowhard governors spout how they were going to 'take a stand' and blah blah blah at every stage of the process. And after all the political hay was stacked when the deadline came they got something cobbled together at the last minute to keep themselves from being liable while their state suffered with the jacked up garbage they produced. This is just the next step along that road.

 

[Tarquelne]

The rest of the world has something that seems to work ... Yep, single payer. It's the only option at that point, like it, hate it, or lump it.

But isn't our inability to make single payer work the go-to example for American exceptionalism?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

But isn't our inability to make single payer work the go-to example for American exceptionalism?

Yeah right up until our exceptional congress has something blow up in their face and has to come up with something in a hurry. I actually think the ACA will work out in the long run, but if some nut job does find a magic bullet that blows it up I think single payer is the only option that they could throw together fast enough to avoid a complete disaster. A series of stopgap measures will eat them alive in costs and political capital before they can blink twice. I'm assuming they wouldn't call it single payer, and in the heat of a crisis that will be good enough to get by.

 

[Kaitzilla]

...
Since the ACA also says that the DHHS can create "such exchanges" (i.e., "such" as in State exchanges, in other words stepping into the shoes of state exchanges) it makes sense to afford "such" exchanges the same benefits. Reading it the other way guts the law and renders the DHHS ability to create "such" exchanges superfluous and irrelevant.

To make this clearer, here is how the law is written:
1. state run exchanges get all our fancy ACA tax subsidies and they get the mandate.
2. and by the way the DHHS can create "such exchanges."

The rub lies in, does #2 mean DHHS exchanges can act like state exchanges and get all the benefits, or do we basically just eliminate part 2 of the law since part 1 renders it moot, if you do not read the two together?

I've read the thing over and over and this argument seems like a winner to me.

Doubt would only creep back into my mind if this made it to the Supreme Court.
Congress' taxing powers are enormous, but the IRS' power to interpret laws isn't.

ObamaCare architect explained in 2012 video why only state exchanges pay subsidies

Hah! He will be re-educated shortly. Great video.

It really is too late to stop Obamacare though.
The subsidy money is out there now.
The government shutdown last fall was the last chance to stop it.

 

[El_Machinae]

The last chance to stop it would've been a few people crossing the aisle, suggesting reasonable changes to something that was gonna happen. A few more honest people interfering with the process of lobbyists writing the bill

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

The last chance to stop it would've been a few people crossing the aisle, suggesting reasonable changes to something that was gonna happen. A few more honest people interfering with the process of lobbyists writing the bill

Crossing the aisle, reasonable, honest people. In American Politics.

Realistically that still makes Kaitzilla right.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Crossing the aisle, reasonable, honest people. In American Politics.

Realistically that still makes Kaitzilla right.

Except the part about the possibility of stopping it the last time the petulant party shut down the government. That doesn't accomplish anything, much less the impossible.

 

[Farm Boy]

The only thing we can really rely on to divine intent is the product passed by Congress. If Congress had wanted Federally run exchanges to be able to give out subsidies, they could have easily included language to that effect. The fact they didn't is all the evidence needed.

Oh but they did. It's just that it isn't referenced in every subsection so if you are a smart enough reconstructionist you'll pull out a seemingly contradictory part rather than looking holistically at thousands and thousands of words(too hard anyway rite?) then answer any challenges with insistence that this reconstruction is just ''plain reading'' of that one lonely part. It works too. Confirmation bias works. Fun, huh?

 

[DinoDoc]

The last chance to stop it would've been a few people crossing the aisle, suggesting reasonable changes to something that was gonna happen. A few more honest people interfering with the process of lobbyists writing the bill

Well they could have bowed to the will of the people and scrapped it.

 

[Farm Boy]

You need the words some of in that sentence.

 

[DinoDoc]

You need the words some of in that sentence.

I'm suggesting a more realistic counter factual.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Well they could have bowed to the will of the people and scrapped it.

Rigggght. Like the system we had before was working so well. Not that there is any way back to it to begin with. This is why I constantly barrage my congressman. He is proud of the immense amount of time he has wasted passing bills that say 'we think this should be repealed...somehow...no clue how to go about that...but in case you didn't know from the message last month, and the month before, and the month before that...'

I don't think there is a single American citizen that believes that that is what we send people to congress to do.

 

[DinoDoc]

Rigggght. Like the system we had before was working so well.

I dunno. Most people had plans before and seemed satisfied with the status quo. There's a reason 2010 happened after all. Also at no point in the history of this new program has it been popular with the American people.

 

[Farm Boy]

I'm suggesting a more realistic counter factual.

Dicing down your sample works as well as dicing out parts of a statute. Michael Moore, for example, is a master of this.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I dunno. Most people had plans before and seemed satisfied with the status quo. There's a reason 2010 happened after all. Also at no point in the history of this new program has it been popular with the American people.

Most people don't do math.

The largest single purchaser of health care services in the US is the US. Between the aging population becoming eligible for assistance and the same aging population coming to need greater care the existing system was going to bankrupt the country (which isn't exactly flush to begin with). This is such an obvious cloud in our future that it was pointed out by the NIXON ADMINISTRATION and all your people 'satisfied with the status quo' ignored it for forty frickin' years.

And apparently you still want to pretend everything was rolling along just fine. Would you suggest that maybe when the country was actually bankrupt would be a good time to have dealt with this? Or would that have been too soon?