King v Burwell

[2centsworth]

For those who want information beyond talking points I suggest you read this. Both sides of the argument presented.

http://ziffblog.wordpress.com/2014/11/10/a-walk-through-halbig-king-and-the-aca-litigation/


Cato debate Videos (http://www.cato.org/multimedia/events/pruitt-halbig-king-indiana-panel-1)

[boutons_deux]

"information beyond talking points"

cato? :lol a VRWC stink tank dedicated to small govt (aka, Let the 1% and Bigcorps rape everything)

[boutons_deux]

the attack on ACA is silly, pure bad-faith politics, cherry picking a single, phrase out of 2000 pages that is obviously erroneous and in conflict with everything else in ACA

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/opinion/paul-krugman-the-latest-frivolous-attack-on-obamacare.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/opinion/paul-krugman-the-latest-frivolous-attack-on-obamacare.html)

[2centsworth]

"information beyond talking points"

cato? :lol a VRWC stink tank dedicated to small govt (aka, Let the 1% and Bigcorps rape everything)

gosh you're dumb. Cato is the challenger and I have you a link to what I believe is a winning argument for the government. You sure you're not Republican?

[FromWayDowntown]

If you're really a nerd about it, you could go here:

http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/king-v-burwell/

and read the actual briefs that have been filed in the Supreme Court. SCOTUSBLOG (via the same link) also has extensive discussion (likely from both sides) about the case from the standpoint of people who devote their careers to watching and understanding the Supreme Court and the complex legal issues that it resolves. They've done a good job incorporating features to explain those things in what they call "plain English" for non-lawyers.

If you have an hour or so to waste, you could also listen to the 4th Circuit argument here:

http://coop.ca4.uscourts.gov/OAarchive/mp3/14-1158-20140514.mp3

[Yonivore]

I like what Powerline blog had to say about this case, earlier today...

IT’S NOT JUST DUMB, IT’S KRUGMAN DUMB! (http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/11/its-not-just-dumb-its-krugman-dumb.php)


We have written here (http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/07/dueling-appellate-court-opinions-on-obamacare-where-do-we-go-from-here.php) and elsewhere about the King v. Burwell case, in which a panel of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals held that the Affordable Care Act allows the federal government to subsidize participants in the federal Obamacare exchange as well as the state exchanges. In Halbig v. Burwell, decided at the same time as King, a panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals went the other way, holding that the statute permits the federal government only to subsidize participants in the state exchanges.

If you want to read a reasoned legal analysis of these conflicting opinions, follow the link above. If you want to read a crude, ignorant, partisan screed, then–as usual–Paul Krugman (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/opinion/paul-krugman-the-latest-frivolous-attack-on-obamacare.html?_r=2) is your man. Krugman’s column is titled “Death by Typo: The Latest Frivolous Attack on Obamacare.” His theory is that the Affordable Care Act suffers from a “typo” that should be corrected by the courts.

Krugman calls it an “obvious typo,” as a result of which:


"...if you look at the specific language authorizing those subsidies, it could be taken — by an incredibly hostile reader — to say that they’re available only to Americans using state-run exchanges, not to those using the federal exchanges."

Funny thing, though: Krugman never quotes the language that represents the “typo” that could lead an “incredibly hostile reader” to think that subsidies are limited to state-run exchanges. Gee, I wonder why? This is what the relevant portion of the Affordable Care Act, 26 U.S.C. § 36B(b)(2), says:


The premium assistance amount determined under this subsection with respect to any coverage month is the amount equal to the lesser of—

(A) the monthly premiums for such month for 1 or more qualified health plans offered in the individual market within a State which cover the taxpayer, the taxpayer’s spouse, or any dependent (as defined in section 152) of the taxpayer and which were enrolled in through an Exchange established by the State under 1311 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act….

Now, you don’t have to be an “incredibly hostile reader” to think that “an Exchange established by the State” means an exchange established by the state. But Krugman never acknowledges that he wants the courts to rewrite the relevant provisions of the ACA. As always, those who don’t see things his way–here, those who read plain English to mean what it says–are malevolent dopes.

Without ever making a legal argument, Krugman engages in his usual bombast:


It’s a ridiculous claim; not only is it clear from everything else in the act that there was no intention to set such limits, you can ask the people who drafted the law what they intended, and it wasn’t what the plaintiffs claim.

The incorrigibly ill-informed Paul Krugman may be the last person in America who doesn’t know that the principal architect of Obamacare, Jonathan Gruber, is on video saying:


I think 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.

In other words, the Halbig court was correct. You can watch Gruber explain why the ACA means what it says here (http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/07/obamacare-architect-explained-intent-behind-limiting-subsidies-to-state-exchanges.php).

But more fundamentally, the whole point of the rule of law is that the law is written. The law means what it says, not what some politician claims, in an interview after the fact, he had in mind but forgot to mention. If the words of a law don’t govern, and instead bullying “interpretations” by crude partisans like Paul Krugman supersede the language of statutes, we no longer live under the rule of law.

This, too, is relevant: where statutes are ambiguous (although this one doesn’t seem to be) courts look to legislative history, in the form of committee hearings and floor debates, to shed light on what legislators intended. But in the case of Obamacare, that normal legislative process wasn’t followed. The bill, as passed, never went through any committee in either the House or the Senate, nor was there any substantial floor debate. No one ever asked the question, “So, I see here that only participants in the state-run exchanges will be eligible for subsidies. Why is that?”

The reason is that the Affordable Care Act was drafted in secrecy by lobbyists from the health care industry and Congressional aides. It was presented–1,000 pages or whatever the total came to–as a fait accompli and voted on before anyone in Congress had an opportunity to read it. Various representations were made about what the law would do, but what it actually said, no one knew. In Nancy Pelosi’s immortal words, we had to pass it to find out.

So now it’s been passed, and we have found out that only participants in state-run exchanges established under § 1311 are eligible for federal subsidies. It plainly applies only to exchanges set up by one of the states, not by the federal government; e.g.:


(d) Requirements.–

(1) In general.–An Exchange shall be a governmental agency or nonprofit entity that is established by a State.

That seems awfully clear to me.

Krugman goes on to bloviate in his usual fashion; I will spare you most of it. But here is his conclusion:


So let’s be clear about what’s happening here. Judges who support this cruel absurdity aren’t stupid; they know what they’re doing. What they are, instead, is corrupt, willing to pervert the law to serve political masters. And what we’ll find out in the months ahead is how deep the corruption goes.

So judges who think that when Congress writes the word “state” in a law, it means “state,” are cruelly absurd, corrupt perverters of the law who serve political masters. This is the kind of insanity to which Paul Krugman and his fellows on the far Left so often descend.

One more thing: Paul, you poor dummy, please link to this post (http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2005/08/011131.php) from 2005 one more time!

[Yonivore]

Another 14 reasons this POS legislation should be repealed...

14 Ways Obamacare Is Still A Disaster (That You Won’t Learn From Vox) (http://thefederalist.com/2014/11/12/14-ways-obamacare-is-still-a-disaster-that-you-wont-learn-from-vox/)

You're welcome.

[ElNono]

If you're really a nerd about it, you could go here:

http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/king-v-burwell/

and read the actual briefs that have been filed in the Supreme Court. SCOTUSBLOG (via the same link) also has extensive discussion (likely from both sides) about the case from the standpoint of people who devote their careers to watching and understanding the Supreme Court and the complex legal issues that it resolves. They've done a good job incorporating features to explain those things in what they call "plain English" for non-lawyers.

If you have an hour or so to waste, you could also listen to the 4th Circuit argument here:

http://coop.ca4.uscourts.gov/OAarchive/mp3/14-1158-20140514.mp3

thanks

[boutons_deux]

Another 14 reasons this POS legislation should be repealed...

14 Ways Obamacare Is Still A Disaster (That You Won’t Learn From Vox) (http://thefederalist.com/2014/11/12/14-ways-obamacare-is-still-a-disaster-that-you-wont-learn-from-vox/)

You're welcome.

and what do the POS Repugs offer as replacement? do the Repugs ONLY destroy, never build, never make progress?

[boutons_deux]

ACA doesn't set insurance prices.

Insurance companies and health care providers have been raising prices for 30 years, MANY TIMES above the inflation rate, but all y'all right-wingers just spread your cheeks for the "free market"

[FromWayDowntown]

It's always remarkable to me that on issues where insanely smart people have taken diametrically opposed views that they can demonstrably support, that anyone could (without sacrificing intellectual honesty) conclude that the issue is either: (a) simple; or (b) cut-and-dried.

Just a general observation.

[ElNono]

It's always remarkable to me that on issues where insanely smart people have taken diametrically opposed views that they can demonstrably support, that anyone could (without sacrificing intellectual honesty) conclude that the issue is either: (a) simple; or (b) cut-and-dried.

Just a general observation.

Or intellectual laziness...

[Yonivore]

It's always remarkable to me that on issues where insanely smart people have taken diametrically opposed views that they can demonstrably support, that anyone could (without sacrificing intellectual honesty) conclude that the issue is either: (a) simple; or (b) cut-and-dried.

Just a general observation.
1) Insanely smart people can be politically corrupt.

2) We have the architect of the legislation on video admitting to the deception.

3) Some things are simple and cut-and-dried. That the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act specifically only allows the federal government to subsidize those who purchase their coverage through an exchange established by a State, is one of those things.

The Law says what it says. Gruber went around bragging the law was written that way in order to extort states into establishing exchanges. (And, when they didn't, the Obama administration violated the law and started giving subsidies to those purchasing through the federal exchange.)

To say otherwise is intellectually dishonest, IMHO.

[Yonivore]

...that they can demonstrably support,...
Almost missed this.

Exactly how are those that say the law allows subsidies of purchases made through the federal exchange demonstrably supporting that claim?

[boutons_deux]

Almost missed this.

Exactly how are those that say the law allows subsidies of purchases made through the federal exchange demonstrably supporting that claim?

apart from the ONE OBVIOUSLY CHERRY PICKED phrase, the rest of law, and everyone involved in writing it, say subsidies were intended for everyone who bought through state OR federal exchange.

The intent of the Repug attack on ACA is bad faith, as ALWAYS with the Repugs, to destroy ACA by legalistically cherry picking an obviously erroneous phrase out of 2000 pages, not improve or fix ACA, not to help uninsured obtain and pay for health insurance, health care.

Why didn't the Repugs army of whore lawyers find this back in 2009? They didn't READ THE LAW? :lol

[FromWayDowntown]

Almost missed this.

Exactly how are those that say the law allows subsidies of purchases made through the federal exchange demonstrably supporting that claim?

There is a team of elite lawyers making (as I understand it; I haven't read the briefs) that argument and I doubt that they're just making it up, particularly since a federal circuit court has (apparently) agreed. That viewpoint is also likely to at least come close to a Supreme Court majority. That's a lot of very smart people reaching opposed conclusions about an issue that you think is simple. Frankly, I tend to credit the intellectual grappling that they're doing much more than the efforts by bloggers and commentators to suggest that one side or the other is just simply a bunch of buffoons.

In the law, there's ample basis to contend -- and frequently, judges who agree -- that laws contain errors or are ambiguous or should be construed to avoid absurd results. Truthfully, the outcome of those arguments are frequently dependent upon politics; in my experience, conservative judges have stretched statutory construction to absurd lengths to support particular results and liberal judges have done the same. Those results aren't necessarily -- for either side -- the product of a cut-and-dried conclusion that cannot be assailed or disputed.

Ultimately, though, my point ("just a general observation," I said) was not so much about this particular case or the arguments made by those who are for or against a particular proposition. I'm just more amused by the rhetoric of "I can't possibly be wrong and you must necessarily be stupid if you don't agree with me" which doesn't actually do much to resolve issues. This thread, like many others, strikes me as proof of that.

[Yonivore]

apart from the ONE OBVIOUSLY CHERRY PICKED phrase, the rest of law, and everyone involved in writing it, say subsidies were intended for everyone who bought through state OR federal exchange.

The intent of the Repug attack on ACA is bad faith, as ALWAYS with the Repugs, to destroy ACA by legalistically cherry picking an obviously erroneous phrase out of 2000 pages, not improve or fix ACA, not to help uninsured obtain and pay for health insurance, health care.

Why didn't the Repugs army of whore lawyers find this back in 2009? They didn't READ THE LAW? :lol
Well, it's not cherry-picked. It happens to be the ONLY place in the law where subsidies are addressed. And, if you read the law, it actually says subsidies can be extended to participants that purchase their coverage through an exchange established by a State -- as defined in another part of the law. When you go to that part of the law, you'll find the definition of an exchange established by a state. Spoiler alert: it's not the federal government.

And, thanks to Mr. Gruber, we know it isn't "erroneous" either.

As far as Republican motives, I'm not sure who brought the lawsuit but, that Republicans happen to agree with the plaintiff doesn't make it bad faith. Republicans have never made it a secret they believe the PPACA is bad law and should be repealed. This is just one example of how they're trying to achieve that end.

[boutons_deux]

"those arguments are frequently dependent upon politics"

and we know the politics of the SCOTUS5 is to fuck Americans and fuck America while protecting/enabling/enriching the 1%/BigCorps.

My guess is what I mentioned above, SCOTUS5 will allow for the subsidies to federal exchange customers (over 900K in TX) while screwing Americans/America/federal power somewhere else, like they did with their earlier 5-4 ruling allowing "states rights" to opt out.

[Yonivore]

There is a team of elite lawyers making (as I understand it; I haven't read the briefs) that argument and I doubt that they're just making it up, particularly since a federal circuit court has (apparently) agreed. That viewpoint is also likely to at least come close to a Supreme Court majority. That's a lot of very smart people reaching opposed conclusions about an issue that you think is simple. Frankly, I tend to credit the intellectual grappling that they're doing much more than the efforts by bloggers and commentators to suggest that one side or the other is just simply a bunch of buffoons.

In the law, there's ample basis to contend -- and frequently, judges who agree -- that laws contain errors or are ambiguous or should be construed to avoid absurd results. Truthfully, the outcome of those arguments are frequently dependent upon politics; in my experience, conservative judges have stretched statutory construction to absurd lengths to support particular results and liberal judges have done the same. Those results aren't necessarily -- for either side -- the product of a cut-and-dried conclusion that cannot be assailed or disputed.

Ultimately, though, my point ("just a general observation," I said) was not so much about this particular case or the arguments made by those who are for or against a particular proposition. I'm just more amused by the rhetoric of "I can't possibly be wrong and you must necessarily be stupid if you don't agree with me" which doesn't actually do much to resolve issues. This thread, like many others, strikes me as proof of that.
I didn't call anyone stupid, I don't believe. And, if I did, I apologize.

I merely pointed out that your reasoning is flawed in that (as you infer in your subsequent post, "Truthfully, the outcome of those arguments are frequently dependent upon politics;...") "insanely smart people" can be driven by political considerations and not intellect.

You just spent three paragraphs not giving any support for the claim the ACA allows for subsidies of the federal exchange but, instead, supported my claim by saying there are a bunch of smart people grappling with this issue that may be looking for something that fits their narrative due to political considerations. To that, I agree.

The bloggers I posted are lawyers, one of whom argues cases before the Supreme Court, I believe. To them, the law is clear. According to Gruber, the law says what they claim it says but, for reasons of political expedience -- because, if he had written it as it is now being applied, it wouldn't have passed, it would have died; as it should have.

[Yonivore]

It just gets better...

Yet another video shows ObamaCare architect disparaging voter intelligence (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/11/13/yet-another-video-shows-obamacare-architect-disparaging-voter-intelligence/)

[boutons_deux]

It just gets better...

Yet another video shows ObamaCare architect disparaging voter intelligence (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/11/13/yet-another-video-shows-obamacare-architect-disparaging-voter-intelligence/)

He has a great point, Repug voters are clearly dumb mofos

[Yonivore]

He has a great point, Repug voters are clearly dumb mofos

Actually, Republicans were trying to warn everyone, all along, that this was a piece of crap law that wouldn't live up to the promises being made by the Administration.

[FromWayDowntown]

You just spent three paragraphs not giving any support for the claim the ACA allows for subsidies of the federal exchange but, instead, supported my claim by saying there are a bunch of smart people grappling with this issue that may be looking for something that fits their narrative due to political considerations. To that, I agree.

I'm not trying to give support to any claim, which is probably why I've not tried to give any support for any claim about the ACA.

Whatever their motivations might be, I doubt that anyone arguing this sort of case to these types of courts are making frivolous and wholly unsupported arguments. My point about politics playing a role in statutory construction wasn't an indictment of anyone involved in this particular case; it's just something that unquestionably drives the outcome in cases where statutory text and intent are at issue, and that's true whether the proponents of the law are Team Red or Team Blue.

I have no idea what the merits of either side of the argument are in this particular case and I don't have time to study it closely; frankly, my view of it makes no meaningful difference to anyone.

My point (again) is broad: we've devolved ideological entrenchment into a refusal to even consider the possible merit of the other side's case. I don't think that's healthy.

[ElNono]

I'm not trying to give support to any claim, which is probably why I've not tried to give any support for any claim about the ACA.

Whatever their motivations might be, I doubt that anyone arguing this sort of case to these types of courts are making frivolous and wholly unsupported arguments. My point about politics playing a role in statutory construction wasn't an indictment of anyone involved in this particular case; it's just something that unquestionably drives the outcome in cases where statutory text and intent are at issue, and that's true whether the proponents of the law are Team Red or Team Blue.

I have no idea what the merits of either side of the argument are in this particular case and I don't have time to study it closely; frankly, my view of it makes no meaningful difference to anyone.

My point (again) is broad: we've devolved ideological entrenchment into a refusal to even consider the possible merit of the other side's case. I don't think that's healthy.


intellectual laziness...

[Yonivore]

I'm not trying to give support to any claim, which is probably why I've not tried to give any support for any claim about the ACA.

Whatever their motivations might be, I doubt that anyone arguing this sort of case to these types of courts are making frivolous and wholly unsupported arguments. My point about politics playing a role in statutory construction wasn't an indictment of anyone involved in this particular case; it's just something that unquestionably drives the outcome in cases where statutory text and intent are at issue, and that's true whether the proponents of the law are Team Red or Team Blue.

I have no idea what the merits of either side of the argument are in this particular case and I don't have time to study it closely; frankly, my view of it makes no meaningful difference to anyone.

My point (again) is broad: we've devolved ideological entrenchment into a refusal to even consider the possible merit of the other side's case. I don't think that's healthy.
Well then, in this case, we simply disagree.

I (and many others, more insanely intelligent than me) believe the law is clear. I (and many others, more insanely intelligent than me) believe Jonathan Gruber is clear. I (and many others, more insanely intelligent than me) believe the leftist dream of a single-payer health care system will die if they don't convince the courts that the law doesn't say what it says and that Gruber doesn't mean what he says, either.

Frankly, I don't see any support for the opposing view that isn't political in nature. On this point, the law is very clear -- and Jonathan Gruber explains why it is written that way.

[ElNono]

It never is cut-and-dried... when it gets boiled down to cut-and-dried for general consumption, it's inescapable that whoever is doing the boiling will add his 2c, especially when when guessing about an outcome that's yet to come.

Once upon a time, the 'mandate' was cut-and-dried too. But it wasn't. Now, that doesn't mean the Supreme Court will side with the government again, it's a different case. But truly clear-cut cases without ambiguity normally die in lower levels.

[boutons_deux]

Actually, Republicans were trying to warn everyone, all along, that this was a piece of crap law that wouldn't live up to the promises being made by the Administration.

Actually,the Repugs were trying NON-STOP slander to kill ACA because they had a strategy from 20 Jan 2009 to OBSTRUCT 100% of everything OBAMA/DEM for 4 (or 8) years.

Repugs knew ACA would help many Ms of American get health care which had a real chance of them ALSO voting DEM to show their appreciation.

ACA passed, and Repug slander and propaganda has worked quite well, with people not even affected by ACA saying it's "unpopular", while dumbfuck ACA beneficiaries (eg, KY jelly brains) still vote Repug,and Bitch McConnell tells they them can have their very well run, very popular state exchange Kynect while repealing ACA. :lol KY jelly brains don't even know that Kynect IS Obamacare :lol

[boutons_deux]

...

[boutons_deux]

Law in the Raw

Nearly a week has gone by since the Supreme Court (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/s/supreme_court/index.html?inline=nyt-org)’s unexpected decision (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/08/us/politics/supreme-court-to-hear-new-challenge-to-health-law.html?_r=0) to enlist in the latest effort to destroy the Affordable Care Act, and the shock remains unabated. “This is Bush v. Gore all over again,” one friend said as we struggled to absorb the news last Friday afternoon. “No,” I replied. “It’s worse.”

What I meant was this: In the inconclusive aftermath of the 2000 presidential election, a growing sense of urgency, even crisis, gave rise to a plausible argument that someone had better do something soon to find out who would be the next president. True, a federal statute on the books defined the “someone” as Congress, but the Bush forces got to the Supreme Court first with a case that fell within the court’s jurisdiction. The 5-to-4 decision to stop the Florida recount had the effect of calling the election for the governor of Texas, George W. Bush. I disagreed with the decision and considered the contorted way the majority deployed the Constitution’s equal-protection guarantee to be ludicrous. But in the years since, I’ve often felt like the last progressive willing to defend the court for getting involved when it did.

That’s not the case here. There was no urgency. There was no crisis of governance, not even a potential one. There is, rather, a politically manufactured argument (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/21/opinion/linda-greenhouse-by-any-means-necessary.html) over how to interpret several sections of the Affordable Care Act that admittedly fit awkwardly together in defining how the tax credits are supposed to work for people who buy their health insurance on the exchanges set up under the law.

Further, the case the court agreed to decide, King v. Burwell (http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/king-v-burwell/), doesn’t fit the normal criterion for Supreme Court review. There is no conflict among the federal appellate circuits. (Remember that just a month ago, the absence of a circuit conflict led the justices to decline to hear seven same-sex marriage (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/same_sex_marriage/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) cases?) In the King case, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va., unanimously upheld the government’s position that the tax subsidy is available to those who buy insurance on the federally run exchanges that are now in operation in 36 states.

A panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled 2-to-1 the other way, accepting the plaintiffs’ argument that the language of the statute limits the tax subsidies to those who buy insurance through the state exchanges, which only 14 states have chosen to set up. The full appeals court quickly vacated the panel’s judgment and agreed to rehear the case. The new argument was set for next month, and the briefs were already filed. The absence of a circuit conflict and an imminent rehearing by the country’s most important court of appeals would, in the past, have led the Supreme Court to refrain from getting involved.

So no, this isn’t Bush v. Gore. This is a naked power grab by conservative justices who two years ago just missed killing (http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-393c3a2.pdf) the Affordable Care Act in its cradle, before it fully took effect. When the court agreed to hear the first case, there actually was a conflict in the circuits on the constitutionality of the individual insurance mandate.

So the Supreme Court’s grant of review was not only unexceptional but necessary: a neutral act. The popular belief then that the court’s intervention indicated hostility to the law was, at the least, premature.

Not so this time. There is simply no way to describe what the court did last Friday as a neutral act. Now that the justices have blown their own cover, I notice the hint of a slightly defensive tone creeping into the commentary of some of those who have been cheering the prospect of rendering the Affordable Care Act unworkable: that as a statutory case, without major constitutional implications, any problems for ordinary Americans that result from a ruling against the government can be fixed by Congress (where House Republicans have voted 50 times to repeal the entire law) or by the states themselves (36 of which failed to set up their own exchanges, thus requiring the federal government to step in as provided by the law).

Sure.

It bears repeating that what’s at stake is whether the Affordable Care Act can continue on its successful trajectory or whether it will collapse into the “death spiral” it was structured to avoid. The reason goes back to the individual mandate, the constitutionality of which the Supreme Court upheld by a 5-to-4 vote two years ago. The policy reason for requiring everyone to carry health insurance is to guarantee a big pool of basically healthy people and to prevent what might otherwise be the smart strategic behavior of buying insurance only when illness strikes (behavior the law’s “guarantee issue” provision would otherwise invite, since no one can be turned down on the basis of a pre-existing condition.)

The law is also designed to make insurance affordable (http://kff.org/infographic/the-requirement-to-buy-coverage-under-the-affordable-care-act/), with no one being required to spend more than 8 percent of his or her income of health insurance.
Federal income tax subsidies available on the exchanges are supposed to bring premium costs below that threshold; without the credits, many people would be exempt from the individual mandate and the law would fail.

Congress assumed that most states would set up exchanges; most states, led by red-state governors, did not. Section 1321 of the law provides that when a state defaults, the secretary of health and human services shall “establish and operate such Exchange within the State.” Clear enough: “such Exchange” implies, without explicitly saying so, that the federal exchange stands in for the missing state’s exchange and assumes its functions. But another section, 1401, explicitly makes the tax subsidies available to taxpayers and their dependents who buy insurance “through an Exchange established by the State.” Those challenging the law say this means “only the state” and that the I.R.S. is not authorized to give subsidies to the more than five million people enrolled through federally run exchanges.

These two provisions, part of a 900-page statute that was cobbled together without going through the usual House-Senate conference committee in which it might have been cleaned up, are the source of the confusion.

The answer to the problem, as the Fourth Circuit panel found unanimously in the King case, is obvious. It’s a basic principle of administrative law that when a federal statute is ambiguous, courts defer to the agency’s interpretation — here, the I.R.S. regulation that makes the tax credits available without regard to whether the exchange is state or federal.

The 1984 decision that established this deference principle, Chevron U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., (https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/467/837/case.html) is so central to the modern understanding of how the government works that it is among the most often invoked Supreme Court decisions of all time, cited in some 13,000 judicial decisions so far, a number that grows at the rate of about 1,000 a year. The tax provisions of the Affordable Care Act fall so naturally onto the “Chevron deference” landscape that it would take an agenda-driven act of judicial will to keep them out and to conclude that Congress enacted a law that contained the seeds of its own destruction.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/john_g_jr_roberts/index.html?inline=nyt-per) knows something about taxes. He saved the Affordable Care Act from his usual allies two years ago by his opinion deeming the individual mandate’s penalty provision to fall within Congress’s tax power. This case puts him back under what I can only assume is an unwelcome spotlight.

It takes the votes of four of the nine justices to accept a case. Certainly JusticesAnthony M. Kennedy (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/anthony_m_kennedy/index.html?inline=nyt-per), Antonin Scalia (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/antonin_scalia/index.html?inline=nyt-per), Clarence Thomas (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/t/clarence_thomas/index.html?inline=nyt-per), and Samuel A. Alito Jr. (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/samuel_a_alito_jr/index.html?inline=nyt-per) — the four who two years ago would have invalidated not only the individual mandate but the entire law — voted to hear King v. Burwell.

(Michael A. Carvin, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, predicted as much last month, declaring in an uninhibited interview (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/michael-carvin-halbig-supreme-court) that the pending rehearing before an appeals court that has recently attained a majority of Democratic-appointed judges would be no deterrent to the justices who wanted to take the case. “I don’t know that four justices, who are needed here, are going to give much of a damn about what a bunch of Obama appointees on the D.C. Circuit think,” he told a reporter from Talking Points Memo.)

An intriguing question is whether there was a fifth vote as well, from the chief justice. I have no idea, although I can’t imagine why he would think that taking this case was either in the court’s interest or in his own; just two months ago, at a public appearance at the University of Nebraska, he expressed concern (http://nebraskaradionetwork.com/2014/09/19/chief-justice-roberts-scalia-ginsburg-wouldnt-be-confirmed-today-audio/) that the “partisan rancor” of
Washington could spill over onto the court.

Here’s another possible scenario, just a theory:

that the four, still steaming over what the right wing regards as the chief justice’s betrayal two years ago, voted to hear King v. Burwell not only for its destructive potential, but precisely to put the heat on John Roberts.

I hadn’t really focused on this idea until I read a piece (http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/392362/four-reasons-supreme-court-likely-rule-against-obama-administration-burwell-john-yoo) that John Yoo posted on National Review Online the day after the court granted the case. Professor Yoo, formerly of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel and now at the University of California at Berkeley, wrote that

the new case gave the chief justice “the chance to atone for his error in upholding Obamacare” and that “it will be the mission of his chief justiceship to repair the damage.”

John Yoo — yes, the Bush administration lawyer whose “torture memos” attempted to justify that administration’s “enhanced interrogation” policies — is a smart man, a former law clerk to Justice Thomas who remains well connected at the court. His choice of the words "atone” and “mission,” with their religious resonance addressed to the devoutly Catholic chief justice, is no accident.

So this case is rich in almost every possible dimension. Its arrival on the Supreme Court’s docket is also profoundly depressing. In decades of court-watching, I have struggled — sometimes it has seemed against all odds — to maintain the belief that the Supreme Court really is a court and not just a collection of politicians in robes. This past week, I’ve found myself struggling against the impulse to say two words: I surrender.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/11/13/opinion/law-in-the-raw.html?_r=0

[Yonivore]

It never is cut-and-dried... when it gets boiled down to cut-and-dried for general consumption, it's inescapable that whoever is doing the boiling will add his 2c, especially when when guessing about an outcome that's yet to come.

Once upon a time, the 'mandate' was cut-and-dried too. But it wasn't. Now, that doesn't mean the Supreme Court will side with the government again, it's a different case. But truly clear-cut cases without ambiguity normally die in lower levels.
Sometimes, issues are intentionally muddled so as to appear more complicated when, in reality, they're not. The law, on this point, is plain.

Exhibit A: Jonathan Gruber

[Th'Pusher]

Sometimes, issues are intentionally muddled so as to appear more complicated when, in reality, they're not. The law, on this point, is plain.

Exhibit A: Jonathan Gruber
And if the court sides against the government, and the millions of people who are currently getting subsidized healthcare through federal exchanges stop receiving the subsidies, what do you think will happen? What do you think those red state polititians are going to do when that subsidy is taken away?

[boutons_deux]

Sometimes, issues are intentionally muddled so as to appear more complicated when, in reality, they're not. The law, on this point, is plain.

Exhibit A: Jonathan Gruber

oh, pussy eater is legal scholar!

your "POINT" in cherry-picked isolation is clear. So you really think the writers of the law intended it to self-destruct via this point, or was this point an misstatement, an error in total contrast with the rest of the law?

[boutons_deux]

The Odds That Each Justice Will Vote To Destroy Obamacare (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/03/02/3628103/justice-likely-vote-case-obamacare/)

On Wednesday, the justices will hear oral arguments in King v. Burwell. They will consider whether to take health care away from millions of Americans (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/01/12/3609638/study-96-million-people-will-lose-health-care-if-supreme-court-decides-to-gut-obamacare/). They will consider whether to cast much of the health care sector into chaos (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/02/25/3626881/insurance-actuaries-seek-permission-jack-rates-supreme-court-guts-obamacare/), potentially destabilizing the individual insurance market in many states. They will consider whether to undercut a program that provides health care to children, potentially leaving 5 million of these children uninsured (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/01/29/3616620/hidden-threat-take-health-care-away-5-million-children/). And they will consider whether thousands of wives get to hold their husbands again and whether thousands of fathers get to kiss their daughters again.

By one estimate, nearly 10,000 Americans will die every year (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/02/24/3626080/many-americans-will-die-supreme-court-chooses-gut-obamacare/) if the justices vote against Obamacare in King.

King, in the words of the New York Times‘ Linda Greenhouse, enlists the Supreme Court “into the front lines of a partisan war (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/05/opinion/overturning-obamacare-would-change-the-nature-of-the-supreme-court.html?rref=collection/column/linda-greenhouse&_r=1).”

It rests on the notion that six words of a nearly 1,000 page law can be read out of context (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/11/12/3591081/a-simple-non-lawyers-guide-to-the-latest-supreme-court-case-attacking-obamacare/) to destroy one of the law’s central functions.

And, yet, the King plaintiffs could prevail. The biggest predictor of how a judge will vote in an Obamacare case has been the judge’s political party (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/09/26/3572673/why-you-cant-trust-the-supreme-court-in-three-quotes/), and five of the nine justices are Republicans.

Based on our analysis of the law, the justices’ past statements, and their ability to resist partisan pressure in the past, here is a breakdown of how each justice is likely to vote, ranked from the most likely to uphold the law to the most likely to take health care away from millions:

Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan

http://d35brb9zkkbdsd.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Liberal-justices-638x206.jpg



As recently as last week, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg penned an opinion joined by Chief Justice John Roberts plus all of her fellow liberal justices except for one, which rejected the idea that a few words of a law may be read out of context (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/02/25/3627161/supreme-court-just-explained-case-obamacare-lose/) by judges attempting to divine those words’ meaning. “Whether a statutory term is unambiguous,” Ginsburg wrote, “does not turn solely on dictionary definitions of its component words.” Rather, a court must look to “the specific context in which that language is used, and the broader context of the statute as a whole.’” Though Justice Elena Kagan was the sole Democratic appointee not to join Ginsburg’s opinion, she nevertheless snuck a pointed statement into her dissent that rejects the King plaintiffs’ acontextual method of reading the law. “I agree with the plurality (really, who does not?) that context matters in interpreting statutes,” Kagan wrote, adding that “[w]e do not ‘construe the meaning of statutory terms in a vacuum.’ Rather, we interpret particular words ‘in their context and with a view to their place in the overall statutory scheme.’”

It would simply be extraordinary if the Court’s Democrats, two of whom were appointed by President Obama, voted to gut Obamacare based on the proposition that the words of a law can be read outside of their context. There is an off chance, however, that one or more of the Court’s more liberal members could embrace the plaintiffs’ reading of Obamacare if that helps them build a majority around a different legal theory that will also save the law.

The plaintiffs argue that states that set up their own health exchange where individuals can buy subsidized health insurance — rather than permitting the federal government to do so for them — are the only states where residents may receive their share of hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of tax credits enabling them to afford insurance. Even if the plaintiffs are correct that the law should be read this way, however, several amicus briefs make a strong argument that imposing such a condition upon the states violates states rights and would therefore be unconstitutional (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/11/10/3590596/how-chief-justice-roberts-could-score-a-big-victory-for-conservatives-and-save-obamacare/).

In NFIB v. Sebelius (https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/11-393), the last lawsuit seeking to destroy Obamacare, Justices Stephen Breyer and Kagan joined the Court’s Republicans in making the law’s Medicaid expansion optional. Though those of us who were not a party to the Court’s private communications can only speculate as to whether Breyer and Kagan did so out of a sincere belief or because they agreed to lend their name to this controversial decision in order to help convince Chief Justice John Roberts to save the remainder of the law, it is worth noting that Kagan, in particular, seemed very unlikely (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/03/29/454404/health-care-and-the-scotus-day-3-part-ii-the-purpose-of-power/) to label the original Medicaid expansion unconstitutional during oral arguments. So, while it is unlikely that any of the Court’s Democrats will actually vote to strike down a major part of Obamacare in King, it is possible that one or
more of them will throw a bone to conservatives if that helps convince one of the Court’s Republicans to save the law.

Odds the Democratic appointees — Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan — will vote to uphold Obamacare: over 99 percent.

Chief Justice John Roberts

http://d35brb9zkkbdsd.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/John-Roberts-worried-638x223.jpg

Roberts proved fickle in the first Supreme Court case seeking to kill the Affordable Care Act. Although Roberts initially voted to strike down the law’s individual mandate, he laterflipped his vote to uphold the bulk of the law (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/07/01/509359/supreme-court-springs-a-leak-leaks-to-conservative-pundits-may-have-started-more-than-a-month-ago/), breaking with his fellow Republicans in the process. CBS News’s Jan Crawford, a veteran Supreme Court reporter who is well-connected on the Republican side of the Court, later suggested that Roberts may have flipped his vote because he is “sensitive to how the court is perceived by the public (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/roberts-switched-views-to-uphold-health-care-law/2/v).” Though Crawford caveats her reporting by noting that “t is not known why Roberts changed his view on the mandate and decided to uphold the law,” she notes that “countless news articles in May warning of damage to the court” may have influenced the chief justice’s thinking.

Should Roberts turn around and gut Obamacare in King, he would only confirm many people’s fears that the Supreme Court has become the judicial wing of the Republican Party. As the Washington Post‘s Robert Barnes wrote on Friday, King presents Roberts with a dilemma: “Can Roberts’s portrayal of the Supreme Court as above politics survive (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obamacare-threatens-to-end-john-robertss-dream-of-a-nonpartisan-supreme-court/2015/02/27/325cd0cc-bcb3-11e4-8668-4e7ba8439ca6_story.html)another round with the most partisan issue of the decade?”

Given the weak legal arguments (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/11/12/3591081/a-simple-non-lawyers-guide-to-the-latest-supreme-court-case-attacking-obamacare/) advanced by the plaintiffs, and the minimal likelihood that any of the Court’s Democrats would join a decision gutting the law, numerous commentators have concluded that the answer to this question is “no” if the justices decide to strike down the tax credits. As Washington & Lee law professor Tim Jost said in a Center for American Progress-produced video, “a 5-to-4 decision invalidating the premium tax credits would seriously call into question the legitimacy of the Court (https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/civil-liberties/news/2015/02/18/106816/9-judges-9-million-lives/).” He added that such a decision would “pretty transparently” happen “for political reasons.”

Competing against Roberts’ desire to preserve the legitimacy of his Court is the fact that he remains a conservative Republican, and he’s hardly been shy about advancing a very conservative agenda in areas such as voting rights (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/06/25/2212281/two-hours-after-the-supreme-court-gutted-the-voting-rights-act-texas-ag-suppresses-minority-voters/) and campaign finance (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/04/02/3422036/how-the-supreme-court-just-legalized-money-laundering-by-rich-campaign-donors/). The chief’s conservative instincts were on full display in his initial vote on Obamacare three years ago. He overcame those instincts that time, but it is far from clear that he will be able to do so again.

Odds Chief Justice Roberts votes to uphold Obamacare: 50 percent.

Justice Anthony Kennedy

http://d35brb9zkkbdsd.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Kennedy-hands-638x217.jpg


In describing Kennedy’s reaction to Roberts’ vote in NFIB, one source told Jan Crawford that Kennedy was “relentless (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/07/01/509359/supreme-court-springs-a-leak-leaks-to-conservative-pundits-may-have-started-more-than-a-month-ago/)” in trying to bring Roberts back in line with his fellow Republicans. Four of the Court’s Republicans signed a dissent calling for the entirety of the Affordable Care Act to be repealed, and Kennedy read that opinion from the bench on the same day that Roberts read the majority opinion saving most of the law (reading a dissent from the bench is one method that members of the Court use to convey extraordinary displeasure with a decision). Given Kennedy’s anger that the Court did not repeal the law three years ago, he is now an unlikely vote in its favor.

That said, there are two mitigating factors that could sway Justice Kennedy. The first is the argument that the King plaintiffs’ reading of the law violates states rights. Kennedy is a strong advocate for federalism; he believes that states’ rights “protect[] the liberty of the individual from arbitrary power (https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/09-1227.ZO.html).” If he can set aside his disdain for Obamacare in King, he could potentially score a major victory for a cause that he has long championed.

The other factor is that Kennedy has, at times, been willing to break from the Court’s conservatives when he believes that the welfare of children is at stake (https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=140480915250262562&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr). As an amicus brief explains, the King plaintiffs’ argument does not simply threaten people insured through the exchanges, it also threatens the health care of as many as 5 million children (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/01/29/3616620/hidden-threat-take-health-care-away-5-million-children/) insured through the CHIP program. That risk to children’s health may give Kennedy pause.

Nevertheless, Kennedy remains an unlikely vote to uphold the law in this case. His previous actions in NFIB are likely to be repeated.

Odds Justice Kennedy votes to uphold Obamacare: 15 percent.

Justice Antonin Scalia

http://d35brb9zkkbdsd.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Scalia-grumpy-638x226.jpg



If this were an ordinary case, Scalia’s vote to uphold the tax credits would be all but certain. Just five months before the Court agreed to hear King, Justice Scalia wrote in Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA about “the fundamental canon of statutory construction that the words of a statute must be read in their context and with a view to their place in the overall statutory scheme (http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/11/symposium-the-grant-in-king-obamacare-subsidies-as-textualisms-big-test/).” A book (http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Law-Interpretation-Legal-Texts/dp/031427555X) that Scalia co-authored in 2012 explains that “no interpretive fault is more common than the failure to follow the whole-text canon, which calls on the judicial interpreter to consider the entire text, in view of its structure and of the physical and logical relation of its many parts.” For Scalia to look at Obamacare and conclude that six words may be read out of context from the law as a whole would be an extraordinary departure from the conservative justice’s previously stated views.

Nevertheless, we’ve seen this movie before. Scalia’s own opinion in Gonzales v. Raich (https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/civil-liberties/news/2012/03/07/11260/not-even-close/) provided a road map for a decision upholding the Affordable Care Act in NFIB, but Scalia decided not to follow it. He voted instead to repeal the entire law.

It is possible that Scalia will feel more of a compulsion in King than he did in NFIB to follow his own previous decisions. But we wouldn’t bet on it.
[I]
Odds Justice Scalia votes to uphold Obamacare: less than 10 percent.

Justice Clarence Thomas

http://d35brb9zkkbdsd.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/clarence-thomas.jpg




Like Scalia, Thomas has also expressed the view that the words of a law must not be read out of context. Rather, according to Thomas, courts should look to “the language itself, the specific context in which that language is used (http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2015/02/fdr_court_packing_plan_obama_and_roosevelt_s_supre me_court_standoffs.2.html), and the broader context of the statute as a whole.” Thomas, however, is well to Scalia’s right on many issues (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/02/24/3321531/clarence-thomas-americas-legal-minds-progressives-ignore-fact-peril/), and he has not gone as far out on a limb as Scalia has by authoring a book that is incompatible with the plaintiffs’ arguments in King. It is not impossible that Thomas would vote to uphold the tax credits, but it is exceedingly unlikely.

Odd Justice Thomas votes to uphold Obamacare: less than 5 percent.

http://d35brb9zkkbdsd.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Alito.jpg


Justice Samuel Alito

Justice Alito is the most partisan member of the Court’s conservative bloc (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/07/02/3455366/the-most-partisan-justice/). Among other things, he is the only one of the Court’s Republicans who has never broken with the four other Republican members of the Court to vote with its four Democrats. He frequently uses his questions during oral arguments to bore holes in the position supported by liberals. Alito is the last justice who will cross over to uphold part of President Obama’s chief legislative accomplishment.

Odds Justice Alito votes to uphold Obamacare: he is more likely to be struck by lightning while committing in-person voter fraud (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/12/02/381172/reince-priebus-voter-fraud/).

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/03/02/3628103/justice-likely-vote-case-obamacare/

iow, No Law is Above The Politics.

[boutons_deux]

VRWC DEATH PANELS!
End Obamacare, and people could die. That’s okay.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/end-obamacare-and-people-could-die-thats-okay/2015/01/23/f436df30-a1c4-11e4-903f-9f2faf7cd9fe_story.html

Will Human-Americans demonstrate, risk police brutality, holding signs:

"American Lives Matter

Not your fucking conservative ideology"

[boutons_deux]

Q. King v. Burwell is avery different type of case. How does the issue at the center of it reflect Federalist Society thinking?

A. Unlike the 2012 challenge to the ACA, King v. Burwell is not a constitutional case. It’s a statutory case. At issue is whether people in states with federally facilitated health insurance exchanges are entitled to receive the tax benefits that make insurance affordable. The parties in this case are asking the Supreme Court to interpret just five words: what is meant by an “exchange established by the State.”

There are two very different ways to look at the issue of statutory interpretation. For many years, the dominant view was: If the meaning of that language is not immediately apparent, judges should look to legislative history – what was Congress’s intent when they wrote those words? In the case of Obamacare, the legislative intent is pretty clear: Congress’s aim was to provide tax benefits to lower income Americans to help underwrite the cost of insurance.

But since the 1980s, there’s been a quiet revolution in statutory interpretation by the courts. Instead of taking into consideration legislative history and intent, there’s been a shift to just looking at the plain meaning of the text and ignoring everything else because supposedly things like legislative history are too subjective.

This revolution began with a core group of Federalist Society members centered in the Reagan Justice Department. Justice Scalia has been a major proponent.

If the plaintiffs in King v. Burwell prevail, the Federalist Society will have two victories.

The obvious one is that Obamacare will suffer another major setback.

The other will be to more firmly entrench this idea of statutory interpretation – we shouldn’t look at legislative history; we shouldn’t look at consequences; we should just look at the plain meaning of the words, and our inquiry ends there. The Supreme Court majority’s approach could well be: The ACA says what it says — let Congress fix it. But they know full well that this Congress will not pass that fix.

Q. What do you think the outcome of King v. Burwell will be?


A. Because of this 30-year revolution in statutory interpretation, the justices have a shield. My sense is that conservatives have enough cover that if five of them want to strike down the law, they will.

http://www.propublica.org/article/behind-supreme-courts-obamacare-case-a-secretive-societys-hidden-hand?utm_source=et&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailynewsletter&utm_content=&utm_name=

[boutons_deux]

Never mind that the law specifically requires the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to “establish and operate such exchange[s] within the states.” Never mind that nobody anywhere understood the Affordable Care Act to have such a restrictive meaning when it was being debated, enacted and put into operation. Such an interpretation certainly never came up during the difficult period when the HealthCare.gov website labored to get up to speed.

Never mind too that time-worn Supreme Court precedents direct judges interpreting laws to consider not isolated snippets of language, but “the specific context in which that language is used, and the broader context of the statute as a whole.” (The wording is from a 1997 opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas.)

For that matter, if anybody in Congress on either side thought the law meant what the plaintiff’s lawyers in King v. Burwellclaim, why have we been having the political battle of the century about it? Why vote 56 times to repeal a law that only applies in 16 of the 50 states?

It’s an odd form of legalistic fundamentalism the justices must consider, the constitutional equivalent of a guy trying to beat a ticket for driving 95 mph in a school zone because a typo reads “ozone.”

The wonder is that the Court elected to hear the case at all after a three-judge appeals court in Richmond rejected it unanimously.

And the scary question is why?

http://www.nationalmemo.com/be-very-afraid-of-king-v-burwell/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=MM_frequency_six&utm_campaign=Morning%20Memo%20-%202015-03-04

Why? because the SCOTUS5 intends fuck up America, which is why Repugs put them on SCOTUS.

[boutons_deux]

The Supreme Court appeared closely divided Wednesday during heated arguments over President Obama's health care law, but questions from Justice Anthony Kennedy gave proponents hope the statute will be upheld.

During sometimes heated oral arguments, all four liberal justices hammered the law's challengers, suggesting that the consequences of eliminating tax subsidies in federal health insurance exchanges would raise a serious constitutional problem.

But conservative justices shot back against the government's lawyer, contending that the law clearly was written to exclude federal subsidies in states that did not create their own exchanges, or online marketplaces. If the court strikes down those tax credits, they argued

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/03/04/supreme-court-obama-health-care/24320547/

:lol SCOTUS5, ALL POLITICS ALL THE TIME

4 words totally override the entire context, intention, and meaning of ACA! :lol

"established by the state" Bingo, ACA is fuckedy the SCOTUS5, for 4 words.

[boutons_deux]

Here's some vintage Tony:


If a statute has a plain meaning, it means what it means, even if the consequences of that interpretation are significant, Justice Scalia said. It "can't be the rule" that a court's job is to "twist" words of a statute for them to make sense, he said.

He and his buddy Sam Alito are either absolute idiots when it comes to their understanding of how Congress works, or they're just mendacious scum. But maybe both:


Justice Alito then challenged the prophecies of doom the government and its allies have made should the plaintiffs win. If the consequences were so bad, states without exchanges doubtless would quickly act to set them up. "Going forward there would be no harm," he told Mr. Verrilli. The solicitor general said that was easier said than done, stressing how complicated it is to set up an exchange and lamenting that until it was up and running, individuals currently getting subsidies would have them taken away. Justice Alito said the court could mitigate that problem by delaying implementation of such a ruling so that states could get their exchanges up.



Justice Scalia was thinking along similar lines. If the court's ruling turned out to be so disastrous, he said, "you really think Congress is just going to sit there?"

"This Congress?" Mr. Verrilli replied incredulously. The courtroom erupted in laughter.



if the SCOTUS strikes down the ACA's federal exchanges, the Republicans in charge of Capitol Hill will gleefully do nothing to fix them.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/03/04/1368501/-Highlights-and-lowlights-from-today-s-Supreme-Court-oral-arguments-on-Obamacare?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos %29

Thanks, Repugs and Repug voters!

[boutons_deux]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B_RJL37UQAAJ6PG.png (http://twitter.com/TheStalwart/status/573163530624610304/photo/1)

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/534451997311639552/km5svvVa_normal.pngJoseph Weisenthal @TheStalwart (https://twitter.com/TheStalwart)
Follow (https://twitter.com/TheStalwart)
BOOM. Hospital stocks surge after Justice Kennedy criticizes Obamacare challenge http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-04/top-court-s-obamacare-ruling-raises-risks-to-hospitals-insurers … (http://t.co/CsBg5QYxlp)
10:50 AM - 4 Mar 2015 (https://twitter.com/TheStalwart/status/573163530624610304)

[boutons_deux]

Lawyer Arguing Against Obamacare: Statute Written By 'White Women And Minorities'

http://a5.img.talkingpointsmemo.com/image/upload/c_fill,fl_keep_iptc,g_faces,h_365,w_652/sgtr1xjzxvtkdf8rc6y3.jpg

Michael Carvin, the attorney arguing on behalf of the plaintiffs in the King v. Burwell case, said this challenge is different because the argument against the law centers on a statute that was "written by white women and minorities."

Carvin's comments were published in a Wall Street Journal profile (http://www.wsj.com/articles/to-kill-a-health-care-law-1425405400) of him on Tuesday, a day before oral arguments began in the King v. Burwell lawsuit.

Carvin argued that the difference between this lawsuit and the one in 2012 is that unlike the 2012 challenge, the argument on Wednesday is on "a statute that was written three years ago, not by dead white men but by living white women and minorities."

"It hasn't had time to 'grow' or 'evolve,'" Carvin added, a jab that mocks terms liberals have used for constitutional doctrines that conservatives have argued aren't supported by the Constitution.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/michael-carvin-obamacare-statutes-white-women-minorities?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+tpm-news+%28TPMNews%29

In Repug/tea bagger/conservative world, white women and minorities are not to be permitted any powers, are to be denied access the Euro-American white man's 1st class status.

[boutons_deux]

Less Than 30 Percent Of Americans Support Supreme Court Nixing Obamacare Subsidies

A Hart Research Associates Poll released on March 2, (https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-03-02/labor-poll-majorities-of-voters-want-scotus-to-save-aca-subsidies) finds that by a solid 63-29 majority, American voters want to keep Obamacare intact. The national survey (https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-03-02/labor-poll-majorities-of-voters-want-scotus-to-save-aca-subsidies) of 800 registered voters, conducted on behalf of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), found that 63 percent of respondents would disapprove, if the Supreme Court restricted the availability of tax credits under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), with 44 percent strongly disapproving.

http://www.politicususa.com/2015/03/04/30-percent-americans-support-supreme-court-nixing-obamacare-subsidies.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+politicususa%2FfJAl+%28Politi cus+USA+%29

and you 30% know who are, don't you? :lol

[boutons_deux]

Letter cited by anti-Obamacare lawyer in Supreme Court case was literally a joke (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/03/16/1371266/-Letter-cited-by-anti-Obamacare-lawyer-in-King-was-literally-a-nbsp-joke)


Michael Carvin, the attorney for the plaintiffs in King v. Burwell, the case pending before the Supreme Court that could end health insurance subsidies for millions, is basing part of his argument on a joke letter officials from seven states sent to the federal government.

The plaintiffs' argument in King is that Congress intended to limit subsidies to states that set up their own insurance exchanges and that, furthermore, all the states knew this going in.

In a panel discussion (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/03/16/3633684/oops-anti-obamacare-lawyer-cites-satirical-letter-evidence-supporting-supreme-court-case/) sponsored by insurance industry group America’s Health Insurance Plans, Carvin pointed to this letter from state officials which included a question about the legal authority the federal government was using on subsidies.

The problem is that the whole letter was basically a prank, these state officials childishly mocking a letter they had received from the federal government requesting information. A lot of information.


According to Tim Jost, a health policy expert and law professor at Washington and Lee University, the letter was a "joke."

The states, Jost explains, "got what they thought was an unreasonable demand from the feds and they sent back a letter that mirrored the request they got from the federal government."

A state official who signed the letter, who spoke to ThinkProgress on condition of anonymity, confirmed Jost's understanding.

The letter, which is seven pages long and consists almost entirely of a list of requests for information from the federal government, was written to mock a similar request that HHS sent the states in earnest. "We weren't spoofing a letter from the Feds exactly," the state official explains, "but we were very much spoofing their proposed documentation requirements of states that wanted to set up a state-based exchange by restating these in a form that would apply to the Feds." He adds that letter was drafted "purely to illustrate the inanity of the federal requirements—and their own inability to provide anywhere near close to the same information to the states."


ThinkProgress has both letters and they are essentially identical.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/03/16/1371266/-Letter-cited-by-anti-Obamacare-lawyer-in-King-was-literally-a-nbsp-joke?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos %29#