Supreme Court Upholds Key Obamacare Subsidies 591
HughPickens.com writes: Retuers reports that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled 6 — 3 in favor of the nationwide availability of tax subsidies that are crucial to the implementation of President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law, handing a major victory to the president. It marked the second time in three years that the high court ruled against a major challenge to the law brought by conservatives seeking to gut it.
"Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them," wrote Chief Justice Roberts in the majority opinion (PDF). He added that nationwide availability of the credits is required to "avoid the type of calamitous result that Congress plainly meant to avoid." The ruling will come as a major relief to Obama as he seeks to ensure that his legacy legislative achievement is implemented effectively and survives political and legal attacks before he leaves office in early 2017. Justice Antonin Scalia took the relatively rare step of reading a summary of his dissenting opinion from the bench. "We really should start calling the law SCOTUScare," said Scalia referencing the court's earlier decision upholding the constitutionality of the law.
"Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them," wrote Chief Justice Roberts in the majority opinion (PDF). He added that nationwide availability of the credits is required to "avoid the type of calamitous result that Congress plainly meant to avoid." The ruling will come as a major relief to Obama as he seeks to ensure that his legacy legislative achievement is implemented effectively and survives political and legal attacks before he leaves office in early 2017. Justice Antonin Scalia took the relatively rare step of reading a summary of his dissenting opinion from the bench. "We really should start calling the law SCOTUScare," said Scalia referencing the court's earlier decision upholding the constitutionality of the law.
Prime Scalia (Score:3, Interesting)
That is of course quite absurd, and the Court's 21 pages of explanation make it no less so.
You would think the answer would be obviousâ"so obvious there would hardly be a need for the Supreme Court to hear a case about it.
I particularly enjoy seeing him jump on the conspiracy bandwagon with this tasty morsel:
But normal rules of interpretation seem always to yield to the overriding principle of the present Court: The Affordable Care Act must be saved.
(Understatement, thy name is an opinion on the Afford- able Care Act!)
This little circular snippet is fun as well:
Who would ever have dreamt that âoeExchange established by the Stateâ means âoeExchange established by the State or the Federal Government â?
Considering he is a known fan of constitutional amendments where "state" means "federal government". Of course, here it doesn't matter because .... well, whatever.
The Court's next bit of interpretive jiggery-pokery
For its next defense of the indefensible
Well, it is good to know that he clearly didn't have any strong opinions on the matter before the case made it to the bench. After all, a predetermined judiciary is what justice is all about in this country, is it not? I would say that he was posturing himself for a new career with Fox News, but there is no good reason for him to do that, being as he already has a job for life.
Re:Prime Scalia - "Words no longer having meaning" (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Prime Scalia - "Words no longer having meaning" (Score:4, Insightful)
If SCOTUS can twist these words what stops them from twisting ANY words?
Except that if "State", only means individual states, then many of the constitutional amendments - including the second - fall apart on the federal level.
Re:Prime Scalia - "Words no longer having meaning" (Score:5, Insightful)
If SCOTUS can twist these words what stops them from twisting ANY words?
Except that if "State", only means individual states, then many of the constitutional amendments - including the second - fall apart on the federal level.
That's why in laws (especially 2400 page monstrosities like this one) they have sections on Definitions to specifically say whether "State" means "50 States", "50 States + US Territories like Puerto Rico", or "50 States + Territories + District of Columbia", etc.
In this case, the law was originally drafted to deal with State-level exchanges. A Federal exchange was an afterthought one they didn't expect/hope would be used. (And according to Gruber, was intentionally left out of this clause.) Whatever the case, the courts should be rewriting when it's a clear cut, cut-and-dried case of an error. As long as there's a plausible rationale for why the text is the way it is ("To discourage States from relying on the Federal exchange, at the cost of the Federal funding that we'd otherwise be giving to the citizens of that State to help with the insurance fee we're forcing them to pay"), we should be relying on the text.
Typos can indeed lead to ludicrous conclusions that can be corrected judicially. This was not one of them.
Re:Prime Scalia - "Words no longer having meaning" (Score:4, Insightful)
"The job of the federal courts is not to re-write law but to affirm or strike down laws which are or are not Constitutional."
Actually, Judicial Review is NOT in the Constitution. But when it happened it was accepted and so it is now enshrined.
Re: (Score:3)
Implied powers. Their authority is spelled out in the constitution -- how it was to be exercised was not. But that's true for all three branches of our government.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Ayup. I mis-typed. That should read "Congress is ceding power to both the Executive and Judiciary".
My bad.
Re: (Score:3)
So you did what the guy who wrote "the State" instead of "the State or Secretary" did? Why shouldn't we hold you to your mistake, instead of the correction? It's pretty obvious what you meant, but what if slashdot editors banned you before you had a chance to correct yourself, should we stand on a strict, literal interpretation of your comment? Or can we all agree that you made a simple mistake, and interpret your words as you obviously meant them?
Re: (Score:3)
"Its doing neither."
Yes it is. With regards to the judiciary, they are deliberately affirming judicial nominations who believe in the idea of re-interpreting the constitution -- and in the extreme, basically writing law themselves.
" so now the Judiciary branch made the decision that America lives in the real world"
Sorry, but when they can bend over backwards and re-define eminent domain to allow the government to take private property from a citizen and force a sale to another private citizen or entity for
Re: (Score:3)
I don't know what you are talking about and evidently neither do you. Congress has voted to remove that wording several times now. Even Obama references those attempts.
And no. Congress was definitely not ambiguous in the wording on this. Supports made mention of it as a tool to force republican governors to create state exchanges when promoting the law to supporters.
This is twice now that scotus has changed plain language wording or ignored it altogether in this law in order to keep it alive.
Re:Prime Scalia - "Words no longer having meaning" (Score:5, Insightful)
Repeal the 17th amendment. At least you would have one house that isn't campaigning all the type.
IMO, the 17th broke a fundamental safeguard of our republic.
Re: (Score:3)
As a liberal leaning independent I completely agree with you. Most Amendments clarify or guarantee rights that are not addressed in the constitution, the 17th flat out dumps an entire section of Article I. Usually not a good idea to change the fundamental functioning of the way the government works when it was designed to work a specific way.
Re:Prime Scalia - "Words no longer having meaning" (Score:4, Insightful)
No but having only taxpayers able to vote would likely be a good idea.
Re:Prime Scalia - "Words no longer having meaning" (Score:4, Insightful)
As long as there's a plausible rationale for why the text is the way it is ...
The reason the text is the way it is, is because of the election of Scott Brown [wikipedia.org] to fill the seat of the recently deceased Ted Kennedy. The Democrats lost their 60 seat super-majority required to override a filibuster. So congress had to pass the bill "as is" with no changes or edits. It was either a flawed law or no law.
Regardless, I'm pretty sure they passed it without reading it. And not because, say, they wouldn't have passed it if they did; rather, because the bill as a whole is entirely unreadable.
Re:Prime Scalia - "Words no longer having meaning" (Score:5, Insightful)
Typos can indeed lead to ludicrous conclusions that can be corrected judicially. This was not one of them.
Apparently, six justices disagree with you...
But if six judges disagreed with you, and they happened to rule against your favored political party, would you placidly accept their decision?
Yes. That's how this works. Part of the function of the Supreme Court is to do what *they* interpret as correct WRT to the law and Constitution, not the most popular or the wishes of the masses or majority.
Congress is free to amend or write a new law - but if they weren't spoiled, selfish children, they would have done that already. They could have easily clarified this, but didn't because Republicans would have used the opportunity to destroy the ACA rather than helping to make it even a little better -- especially important in light of the *fact* that the Republicans have no alternative to the ACA, except to get rid of it. Don't know why they don't want to keep the poor and middle class from getting health insurance...
The person who brought this particular suit is special kind of asshole as he has admitted he has no personal standing as he is already eligible for VA or Medicare coverage - so nice for them to have *his* Universal Healthcare Coverage taken care of...
Re: (Score:3)
The Bush/Gore case was, I think, the most legally flawed SCOTUS decision of the past 25 years. Today's ruling is, however, in the top 20 of most legally flawed SCOTUS decisions of the past 25 years.
They should have just refused to hear the Bush/Gore case when it was presented and, if four justices voted to grant cert, the rest should have ruled in the majority that the case was, at that time, not ripe. Yes, in a few weeks, they would likely have had a legitimate case before them and the correct legal decisi
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
And happening so fast, I can't explain it.
We have this court now, pretty much ignoring the constitution on this law, it really should have been a given, but they seemed more interested in not causing chaos for a lot of people that would have been thrown off the federal dole on this.
We've seen the Rebel flag suddenly become a horrible symbol of oppression, and hate and vilified all of a sudden and yanked even from online stores and private indivi
Re: (Score:3)
I don't know where you are from, but it has never been that in my life, nor the people I've known and grown up with all my life.
It has never been thought of or used in a racist or threatening manner growing up in the south in my experience.
It was just a common symbol of living in the south, southern pride...a backdrop at a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert...the top of the General Lee.
Re: (Score:3)
As someone that has grown up in the south and is more than a few years old...no, that is not the case.
This uproar and associated meanings with the Rebel Battle Flag is a recent occurrence. I grew up with it and it was never that way....it was a backdrop for a Lynyrd Skynryd concert, or the
Re:Prime Scalia - "Words no longer having meaning" (Score:4)
The act uses the term "the state", not "a state". The opinion of authors was that if they had a chance to rewrite it, they'd make it clear "the state" referred to the federal government. Scalia himself has reasoned cases on Congressional acts that said the entire act must be looked at to get the meaning of the terms. He cannot very well turn around now and claim the narrow interpretation he wants simply because he doesn't like the act.
Re:Prime Scalia - "Words no longer having meaning" (Score:4, Informative)
"The act uses the term "the state", not "a state". "
Maybe elsewhere, but not in the context that was being litigated: "established by a State".
Re:Prime Scalia - "Words no longer having meaning" (Score:5, Insightful)
Viewing these words as a mistake is the simplest interpretation of the law. The other option is to re-interpret lots of other sections, and change the law to be at odds with how the people writing it meant for it to be interpreted.
The writers of the law clearly wanted to establish state exchanges for any state that wanted them, and a federal exchange for any state that didn't want to roll its own, and that all of these exchanges do the same thing. This might not be apparent in that little snippet, but it's very much apparent in the text of the law [healthcare.gov] itself.
It's not as though the SCOTUS majority is pulling meaning out of nowhere for just this passage. Quite the contrary, they'd have had to re-interpret a lot of text to infer that the law was written so as to exclude subsidies for the federal exchange.
Re:Prime Scalia - "Words no longer having meaning" (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Prime Scalia - "Words no longer having meaning" (Score:5, Informative)
The intent matters just as much as the plain language. Scalia himself has defended that intent matters more than plain language multiple times including pulling out 300 year old dictionaries. The affirming verdict itself quotes Scalia from the last ruling where he completely contradicts what he claims in this dissent. He's an inconsistent little troll, he rules whatever he wants, not what the constitution requires.
Re:Prime Scalia - "Words no longer having meaning" (Score:5, Insightful)
"The other option is to re-interpret lots of other sections, and change the law to be at odds with how the people writing it meant for it to be interpreted"
I think I read that book in high-school. Wasn't it called 1984?
Re: Prime Scalia - "Words no longer having meaning (Score:4, Informative)
The writers of the law clearly wanted to establish state exchanges for any state that wanted them, and a federal exchange for any state that didn't want to roll its own, and that all of these exchanges do the same thing.
Johnathan Gruber didn't seem to think so. He bragged that the idea was to intimidate conservative states into exchanges by withholding subsidies from citizens of states which declined to create them.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: Prime Scalia - "Words no longer having meaning (Score:4, Informative)
The court doesn't need to twist anything. They use week established rules of construction. This is necessary because a single textual document will never convey every nuance.
"We begin with the familiar canon of statutory construction that the starting point for interpreting a statute is the language of the statute itself. Absent a clearly expressed legislative intention to the contrary, that language must ordinarily be regarded as conclusive.:" Consumer Product Safety Commission et al. v. GTE Sylvania, Inc. et al.,447 U.S. 102 (1980).
But the language of the statue has to be understood as a whole.
For example, noscitur a sociis ("a word is known by the company it keeps"):
When a word is ambiguous, its meaning may be determined by reference to the rest of the statute.
That's exactly what the Court did here, and is exactly what most reasonable humans do in establishing the meaning of any word or words.
Re:Prime Scalia - "Words no longer having meaning" (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Wickard vs Filburn.
There ya go.
Re:Prime Scalia (Score:4, Funny)
Yup he did the "Jane you ignorant slut!" speech.
Re: (Score:3)
I am totally in favor of Obamacare and am happy SCOTUS ruled this way, but I do believe this was one of the stronger anti-obamacare arguments.
P Basically, this is a clear vic
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If the trouble lies with the wording of one part of the law, surely Congress should amend it so it clearly reflects their intent. That's what a functional legislative body would do. And it could happen easily were it not for one party that insists upon acting like petulant children instead of rational and responsible leaders.
At the very least shouldn't Congress act in the best interests of the people they were elected to represent?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, since we don't have a functional legislative body, we're fucked.
No. They should act in the best interests of the corporations that paid them to be represented. What the best interests of the people comes secondary if
Re: (Score:3)
"Well, since we don't have a functional legislative body, we're fucked."
Congress choosing not to act is in fact a valid choice. Don't like it, vote them out.
Re: (Score:3)
Bush gets a congressional authorization for his war, even goes to the UN. Obama just does whatever they hell he wants in Libya.
Wow, did you really just compare the Iraq War to what Obama did in Libya? Really?
Get a historical clue before you post here or face your ignorance being exposed.
Re:Prime Scalia (Score:4, Informative)
The question isn't the meaning of "state," it's whether the drafters of the law meant that "exchange established by the state" included the states that establish an exchange, and implemented it by integrating the state's systems with the federal exchange, or only the states that built an exchange completely on their own. Given that the law was written originally envisioning that all state exchanges were implemented by integrating into a single federal exchange, and the idea of states implementing their own exchanges was added late in the process (at the insistence of Republicans), it's quite clear that the people writing the law had no problem with the idea that states would establish exchanges, physically run by the federal infrastructure.
2/3rds of the Supreme Court agreed.
Re: (Score:2)
Considering he is a known fan of constitutional amendments where "state" means "federal government". Of course, here it doesn't matter because .... well, whatever.
Exactly. If you take this challenge to ACA completely literally, it would mean that if a state hired a contractor to build an exchange for them, the exchange would not qualify...
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, if nobody in the SCOTUS kicks the bucket before this presidential term is up, it means that the next president's policies will be far less influential to the country than the near certainty of them replacing multiple supreme court justices.
Re: (Score:3)
Are any of the justices not partisan hacks? They almost always vote along party lines rather than the actual law.
what is interesting is not that it won (Score:2, Insightful)
It means that these 3 did not look at, nor care, about intentions. In addition, even looking at the wording, and taking it to this extreme, shows that these 3 are working hard to legislate via the bench.
These 3 judges are some of the WORST that America has ever had who puts their politcs over the constitution or what our framers wanted.
Re: what is interesting is not that it won (Score:5, Insightful)
But the language of the law is clear. 'State'...
If that doesn't mean 'state' then the court has set precedent to let lower courts decide what laws mean.
And that is not how this nation is intended to work.
The revolution is winning.
Re: (Score:3)
In this case the framers of the document are still all mostly around, it is not like trying to figure out the intent of an amendment or law that is 200 years old as it applies to technology that is only a few years old. Nobody during floor debate argued about this interpretation issue. It is purely an issue of ambiguous language and a shifting of power to the nutjob party that prevents even a typo to be corrected to clear this up to make the intent unambiguous.
Re: what is interesting is not that it won (Score:4, Informative)
The actual architect of the law, as well as some other people involved with the writing, specifically stated at the time the law was being written that the purpose of the tax credit only applying to State exchanges was to force uncooperative states to comply with the law.
There are several videos of full speeches by Gruber where he clearly spells out that that was the intent of the law and why there is no mention of the Federal exchange and credits. It's also why this law specifically defines State exchange as an exchange established by one of the 50 states or a US territories (although Obamacare had issues with territories too).
This was not about fixing a mistake in a law but re-writing it and ignoring it's clear intent to prevent it from falling apart.
Re: what is interesting is not that it won (Score:4, Informative)
This claim doesn't align with the facts. The original ACA had no state exchanges - those were injected by Republicans late in the process. And even then, the assumption was that few states would choose to physically build their own exchanges, and almost all states would choose to operate their exchanges on the federal infrastructure, because that would be vastly less work/cost/risk. There was no discussion at the time of states losing subsidies based on running on state vs federal infrastructure. In fact, Republicans at the time all assumed that all states received subsidies whether they ran on the federal infrastructure or built their own. The idea that state exchanges run on the federal infrastructure wouldn't get subsidies was invented years after the fact.
Re: (Score:3)
Jonathan Gruber, often referred to as the key architect of the ACA (paid over $400,000 by the WH to help craft the bill and many times that by individual states to help them deal with it) said when asked about State vs Federal exchanges:
Re: (Score:3)
The original ACA had no state exchanges - those were injected by Republicans late in the process.
The Republicans didn't write a single word of it, and none of them voted for it.
The Democrats keep trying to place that blame on the things they 100% did, because thats what Democrats do. They never take responsibility for the consequences of their actions, they only wants credit for the intent of their actions.
Re: (Score:3)
Are you that misinformed or just making things up?
The republicans had no say whatsoever in the ACA. It passed with zero support. The only bi-partisan aspect of the ACA was it's opposition. This is completely owned by an overwhelming democrat majority in congress at the time.
Re: (Score:3)
Obama should have pushed through a wider single payer system, since it would have received the same number of Republican votes.
Re:what is interesting is not that it won (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a basic principle of statutory interpretation that legislatures define laws by their written text. If the text is vague, you can fill in the blanks by guessing at the intent, but if the text is clear, the text is the meaning of the statute. Since legislation is usually the product of intense horse trading, statutes rarely have any sort of coherent intent and they are often full of contradictions.
That being said, that wasn't the case here. The statute was plainly worded and the whole "only states that set up exhcanges get subsidies" mechanism was bragged about for the first two years after it was signed into law. They only changed their tune when they realized that the structure collapsed if you take away the subsidies (which also control the mandates, etc).
Bascially, the administration asked for Chevron deference, which means "the statute is so vague, we have no idea what it means, so the IRS can make a rule that is directly the opposite of the text". Even this was a stretch.
The supreme court turned around and rewrote the statute for them, saying "the statute isn't vague, it means exactly the opposite of what it says, there's no need for the IRS to even do anything or pretend to need Chevron deference."
Re:what is interesting is not that it won (Score:4, Interesting)
the Federal Government will establish “such Exchange” if the State does not
that tax credits “shall be allowed” for any “applicable taxpayer,”26 U. S. C. 36B(a), but only if the taxpayer has enrolled in an insurance plan through “an Exchange established by the State under [42 U. S. C. 18031],”
Anyone fluent in English understands that this means the Federal Government can create exchanges.
Re: (Score:3)
What the majority decided is that this was essentially a drafting error. If legal documents and public law drafts could be compiled and executed or analyzed like C code, I'm certain that there'd be loads of errors that could be caught before signing. Imagine shipping a program without ever being able to run it, even once. [Obligatory Microsoft joke to be inserted here.] [Hi Ho.]
This comes up all the time in contract drafting, where initial language gets tightened up and someone has to do a global search for
Re:what is interesting is not that it won (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a basic principle of statutory interpretation that legislatures define laws by their written text.
LMFTY: It's one basic principle in English Jurisprudence, known in legal circles as "the plain meaning rule". The other two are: "the golden rule" and "the mischief rule".
The golden rule allows a judge to depart from a word's normal meaning in order to avoid an absurd result.
The mischief rule sets the court to determine the "mischief and defect" that the statute in question has set out to remedy, and what ruling would effectively implement this remedy.
When America was founded those three principles were firmly in place. Over the years the courts and the laws themselves have been moving away from that tradition, creating the (in)famous loopholes that are the bread and butter of corporate law practice.
Re: (Score:3)
You'll need some kind of cite for that "was bragged about..." bit. Everything I've read is that it's just not true; that none of the states (for example) realized that by not setting up an exchange that they would be at a disadvantage.
Re: (Score:2)
There are several competing concepts of law. The three judges in question are a believer in strict literal meaning of the words, rather than the intent.
This is not the WORST that America has ever had, it is a fairly common point of view exposed by conservatives. It is wrong, but not the worst.
The worst are the people that don't care about intent or literal meaning - those that just try to compromise and/or shift the law to what they want it to be.
Re:what is interesting is not that it won (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit! Words need to have meanings and laws need to have concrete meanings to whatever degree is possible. Its the whole reasons things are struck down all the time as 'void for vagueness.'
If congress is allowed to retroactively decide what they intended, never mind what the wrote than we might has well go back to a monarchy and whatever the King thinks today goes. A system of laws is absolutely useless when anything can mean whatever government wants it mean. You and I just suffered a blow to any real protection any real possibility of justice. This is just one more example of turning the rule of law into a bad joke. The SCOTUS, POTUS, and Congress should be ashamed of themselves.
There is plenty of evidence in the form of Gruber to suggest that congress did indeed intend to write what they wrote to cajole states into compliance. Sates called their bluff and now congress gets a pass.
Context (Score:2)
So when you go to interpret a law, you can't count on what it says anymore?
If the law intended for the federal government to subsidize all plans on exchanges established by the states OR the federal government, why didn't it say so?
A small part of me (Score:5, Insightful)
A small part of me wanted to see this go down, just to watch the shitstorm that resulted and see the Republicans claim that it wasn't their fault.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
As it is, it is obvious that Scalia, Alito, and Thomas do not give 1 shit about the constitution and hope to simply legislate from the bench.
Basically, those 3 are some of the worst justices that America has had. I would not be surprised to see 1 or more of these were on the take.
Re: (Score:3)
Basically, those 3 are some of the worst justices that America has had.
I agree with that part, for sure. Scalia in particular is not just a hack but also has a huge ego to go with it. He is himself an argument for not making these lifetime appointments.
I would not be surprised to see 1 or more of these were on the take.
I would argue it is actually most likely the opposite. The ACA was written by a bunch of congresspeople who were on the take (why else would they have written and passed the largest corporate handout in the history of government?). I expect this retaliation from Scalia and friends is their expression of anger that they wer
Re: (Score:2)
Because there was not much of an alternative. How to you do this without doing how the ACA setup or going single payer? Single payer was not going to happen, so conservatives forced this method on them.
Re: (Score:2)
Because there was not much of an alternative. How to you do this without doing how the ACA setup or going single payer? Single payer was not going to happen, so conservatives forced this method on them.
So.... In fact you are *blaming* conservatives for this construct? Look, the issue is the ACA has no business being a law at the federal level, it is an issue, similar to many in the past, which should have been addressed at the state level. The eventually failure of the ACA will not be because the conservatives had any impact on it's drafting, but because the American people realize that the ACA was NOT what they where told it was.
Re: (Score:2)
First the average American doesn't know what a deductible means.
Second, the ACA was drafted as the Republican plan back when the Democrats were trying to figure out how to make the whole system single payer.
The ACA has no business as a federal law just like there should be no standing US army, no EPA, no FCC, no interstate highway system, and no national parks. They were added because (1) there was a need and (2) the states can't get their shit together - mostly the latter.
Re:A small part of me (Score:4, Interesting)
It has no business at the federal level due to the 10th amendment.
Republicans had absolutely zero control of this bill or they would have stopped it from passing. Democrats had an iron grip on congress with majorities in both the House and Senate, they could literally pass ANY law they wished with any content they wanted. Literally all the Republicans could do is stand in front of the TV cameras and complain about it, unless they could peal off enough democrat votes to stop something, the democrats had free reign to do anything and pass anything they wanted. This was true for the first part of Obama's first term, until Teddy Kennedy's Senate seat was filled in the special election by a republican, at which point, all the republicans could really do was block cloture and stop something. Still the democrats could still make a rule change (the nuclear option) and get *anything* they wished though congress and to the president until the midterms.
You are blaming the wrong group here...
Re: (Score:2)
Friendly reminder, Thomas's wife is head of an anti ACA PAC.
Re:A small part of me (Score:4, Insightful)
No, they didn't vote for it. They employed it as a political tool to get votes. They were happy to benefit from the Koch's astroturf money to do this. Nor did they propose some perfectly workable combination of regulation (force medical care provider price transparency) and deregulation (allow the import of foreign drugs, products and medical services) which would have nipped this abomination in the bud.
So instead of accepting a national health care system of the sort that every other European country and Canada has (and pays for), we got this..... thing.
No, the Republicans didn't write or vote for this, but they sure as shit *caused* this.
Re: (Score:3)
The ACA can lower healthcare costs. It establishes an actual marketplace where any insurance company can enter and try to compete on price, and defines the quality of the product. I haven't seen significant price competition anywhere in the system before. It also encourages people to get stuff treated before it gets major, which can reduce healthcare costs.
In addition, it frees people to become entrepeneurs, even if they have children or preexisting medical conditions, and I think that's going to be a
Roberts admits to being wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
In other words, the majority's decision was based not on the law itself, but on its effects and/or would-be effects.
Not one Congressman has read the law in full — not before it was passed, not after. It is too long and too complicated.
Though it is acceptable for courts to turn to legislative intent [wikipedia.org] sometimes, that's specifically reserved to cases, where the laws language is unclear.
That
Re:Roberts admits to being wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, the majority's decision was based not on the law itself, but on its effects and/or would-be effects.
In correct. In other words. The law was clearly drafted with a given intent that the plaintifs want the court to ignore, however intent of the law is an important part of the SCOTUS's interpretation of all laws.
Not one Congressman has read the law in full — not before it was passed, not after. It is too long and too complicated.
Though it is acceptable for courts to turn to legislative intent [wikipedia.org] sometimes, that's specifically reserved to cases, where the laws language is unclear.
That was not the case here — as written, the law clearly only allows subsidies for residents of those states, that have set up "health exchanges" of their own. Whether that was the intent of the law-makers or not is irrelevant. The court's decision is wrong.
What is written is not what is meant by intent, what is meant by intent is what the law was meant to accomplish. In this case if you remove all context from those few lines you can make it look like the intent was not to provide subsidies to these states (if you ignore that the word state has dual meaning in legislation), however when you look at the full bill, or heavens forbid, talk to the drafters of the law, you can see that the intent was to provide the credits either way.
Re:Roberts admits to being wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Both the intent and the bill are documented, the thought process is known...
Also you are stating the SCOTUS, the ultimate power in determining the law, is unreliable? And the fact that centuries of jurisprudence is based on this is not legal?
Re: (Score:3)
Let me clarify for you then. What is specifically written in a small paragraph is not what you can look at in forming intent, it is the entire bill as a whole and the documented intentions of those writing it.
So it does not mean the administration can do whatever it wants, it is still bound by the law and the laws intent, as interpreted by the SCOTUS. It is checks and balances.
Re: (Score:3)
Not one Congressman has read the law in full â" not before it was passed, not after. It is too long and too complicated.
If you don't believe that any congressperson has read it, do you then believe Scalia in his dissent when he says that he has read it?
the reader of the whole Act will come across a number of provisions beyond Â36B that refer
This comes from page 5 of Scalia's dissent. Do you believe that he somehow found time to read the entire document in the time they had between arguments and writing of the judgement, even when they had other cases to decide on as well?
SCOTUS Decisions often based on reality (Score:5, Interesting)
In other words, the majority's decision was based not on the law itself, but on its effects and/or would-be effects.
Yes. In the real world SCOTUS looks closely at what impact their decision will have. "not based on the law itself" is a ridiculous criticism--they are being *asked* what the law is, and part of deciding what the law is when there is any ambiguity or potentially counterintuitive result is to figure out what are the consequences if the law is way X vs. way Y.
That's why SCOTUS often considers "administrability" when they are making decisions. It's a fundamental part of how the court operates. Would you rather they kill people Congress didn't intend to kill or that they say "this is a typo and in the context of what you are doing, it's pretty damn clear you would have intended this to mean X if you had bothered to read the law you wrote."
There is zero ambiguity here in terms of what Congress intended; it's clear that a law was poorly drafted. This is a not a maybe-they-meant-Y situation, this is a "hey, they accidentally used a sentence that probably says Y."
Re: (Score:2)
There is zero ambiguity here in terms of what Congress intended; it's clear that a law was poorly drafted. This is a not a maybe-they-meant-Y situation, this is a "hey, they accidentally used a sentence that probably says Y."
Two points on that:
1. There were HUNDREDS of lawyers involved in combing over every letter of that law. You really think someone left one of the key parts of the bill sloppily worded like that?
2. The counter argument to the subsidy intent was that the federal government wanted to force the states to create their own exchanges. To incentivize that, the states would only get the subsidized plans if they did set up their own.
Re: (Score:3)
In other words, the majority's decision was based not on the law itself, but on its effects and/or would-be effects.
Not one Congressman has read the law in full — not before it was passed, not after. It is too long and too complicated.
Though it is acceptable for courts to turn to legislative intent [wikipedia.org] sometimes, that's specifically reserved to cases, where the laws language is unclear.
That was not the case here — as written, the law clearly only allows subsidies for residents of those states, that have set up "health exchanges" of their own. Whether that was the intent of the law-makers or not is irrelevant. The court's decision is wrong.
The text is essentially a hunk of code describing how to execute the law.
The controversial section is a bug.
Do you think the courts should faithfully execute the buggy code, crashing part of the country in the process, or do you think they should fix or ignore the bug and allow the law to execute successfully?
Re:Roberts admits to being wrong (Score:5, Informative)
The text is essentially a hunk of code describing how to execute the law.
The controversial section is a bug.
Do you think the courts should faithfully execute the buggy code, crashing part of the country in the process, or do you think they should fix or ignore the bug and allow the law to execute successfully?
Well, according to one of the law's architects, it was a Feature, not a Bug: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34rttqLh12U&feature=youtu.be [youtube.com]
So to answer your question: Yes.
Re:Roberts admits to being wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
That was not the case here — as written, the law clearly only allows subsidies for residents of those states, that have set up "health exchanges" of their own.
That's simply not true. There is ONE SINGLE CLAUSE TAKEN IN ISOLATION WHICH SAYS "ESTABLISHED BY THE STATE", but there are other clauses which clearly spell out in more detail the requirements of the exchanges and the relationship between state and federal, but the nutjob right-wing desperadoes who have failed in every other attempt to overturn ACA chose to pin their hopes on SCOTUS taking a single clause out of context...
Re: (Score:3)
Now, if a grade schooler can read harry potter, do you really think that not a one of the congress critters or their assistents ever read it?
Now ho-o-o-o-o-o-ld on there, Wilbur. Harry Potter is fun to read, and you're comparing it to a piece of legislation. Your argument can reasonably be rephrased like this: If a child can eat a whole cake, why can't a congressman smile while eating a shit sandwich?
Opportunity Lost (Score:3, Informative)
This astonishing track record bears repeating: Only 16 out of 50 states chose to create state health exchanges, even though the law stated that by not doing the citizens of the remaining 34 states would not get federal subsidies (the whole point of the Supreme Court case). Yet, of those 16 that did create exchanges, more than half have failed to work or have gone over budget, after wasting more than $4 billion in federal funds. On top of that, three are now under investigation.
Re:Opportunity Lost (Score:4, Insightful)
Yet, of those 16 that did create exchanges, more than half have failed to work or have gone over budget, after wasting more than $4 billion in federal funds. On top of that, three are now under investigation.
Gosh, corruption in government! You are shocked, shocked! Maybe we should eliminate every part of government that wastes money! Can we start with the DOD? But NO, you want to start on the part that keeps people healthy.
Two political articles in a row? (Score:2)
What kind of country (Score:2)
is stupid enough to leave the health of its citizens up to the vagaries of the profit motive? How many assets does a a nation have that are more valuable than a healthy population?
Mixed feelings... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Get 534 of your colleagues together, and write a 500,000 line program.
Will there be any bugs? Can there *not* be any?
As a Republican... (Score:3, Insightful)
... I'm not a fan of Obamacare. In fact, that's putting it lightly. However, I think the court got it right on this one. Trying to get a part of the law thrown out on a technicality in an effort to get the law to implode on itself and hurt the American people is not the right way to get the law repealed.
The way to get the law repealed is for Congress to repeal it. If they don't have the majority yet to do it, then we need to win people (and seats in Congress) over to our side.
Note: my criticism does not not apply to the earlier challenge which, while perhaps weaker, was more legitimate in questioning the legality of the law on constitutional grounds. This challenge amounted to "nuh uh because you wrote State but you should have written State or Federal, hah!" Be glad you don't live in a world where courts always rule strictly on literal interpretations. That would be a really, really shitty world.
it's a just a first tiny step (Score:4, Insightful)
obamacare is obviously grotesque
but what it does is plainly acknowledge that american healthcare is an grossly inefficient piece of shit. our system is insanely expensive and people avoid basic healthcare. because of the misguided notion that capitalism has anything to do with a basic right. there is no competition in healthcare, it is a *natural monopoly* (look it up, retards). all we will ever get in the system that makes believe there is competition, because free market fairies and unicorns, is rent seeking parasites funneling money off for no added benefit, and paying congresscritters top keep it that way. and of course propagandized fox news morons believing the scaremongering ignorance that they shovel out should we try to get a better system
all of our social and economic peers spend A TENTH OR LESS WHAT WE SPEND, AND HAVE FAR BETTER HEALTH OUTCOMES. ask any canadian, british, french, german, japanese, australian: our system scares the hell out of them, they shake their heads in horror at what americans have to put up with. it's not about "freedom" unless you wish to be free from quality low cost healthcare (if you don't want to buy health insurance, you're basically saying you want to be a freeloader and avoid your bill... an irresponsible ignorant douchebag, not a freedom fighter)
republicans kick and scream. and offer nothing better
because they don't want to admit that they are ideologically bankrupt on the question. instead of admitting they are wrong, they have no problem with americans having extremely expensive, shoddy healthcare, and dying too early and broke. there's your "death panels": lower middle class? fuck you, go bankrupt and die
again, obamacare is horribly imperfect, but it's the first step and a basic acknowledgment of how broken our system is
and now we must take the other 1,000 steps we need to take to reach single payer universal healthcare, the only fucking answer that makes any fucking sense on the subject of a functional healthcare system
i'm sorry so many americans are so fucking stupid and ideologically blinded that they would rather have extremely expensive healthcare or just plain die, rather taen understand or admit the fucking obvious. but you morons won't hold us back from what is obvious to anyone moderately intelligent on the topic and not propagandized by right leaning media lies
Re:it's a just a first tiny step (Score:4, Informative)
so when you're bleeding to death or having a heart attack you shop around for the best price, right?
how many different fire houses does a given city have, genius?
does that negate the natural monopoly of fire emegencies?
in fact, fire departments actually used to be private companies. they used to arrive at a fire as fast as possible, then start beating each other up like gangs for the privilege of who would put out the fire. absolutely true
http://jasoncochran.com/blog/w... [jasoncochran.com]
should fire departments not put out fires in structures that don't pay their fire dept insurance? should they give bills to people that, if not paid, means your house burn down?
you can see how fucking retarded that is
and we luckily beat the *corruption* and got rid of the stupid system and now have professional fire fighting forces
so why are you such a fucking propagandized moron you can't see the same lessons apply to health care?
Re:it's a just a first tiny step (Score:4, Interesting)
you don't shop for care when you're having a heart attack or you have a broken arm or any emergency
you don't shop around for an oncologist when you have cancer (not that you don't have the time, you lack the knowledge to make an educate choice)
all you have done is enunciate related topics like doctor supply that does not disprove the fucking actual topic: healthcare is a natural monopoly. you need a hospital to cover a given area, and you don't shop around for various hospitals when you need emergency or knowledgeable care
please understand the fucking basic facts of a topic then open your ignorant mouth
or shut up, because you don't matter. all of our social and economic peers and even most countries less developed than us understand that healthcare has to be single payer. and they all spend far less than us and have higher quality care. so it doesn't matter what you think or what you say, history has passed you by, and we will drag the retarded propagandized wing of americans into the realm of common sense, and they will live longer and spend less on healthcare in spite of their abject ignorance
Lets watch. (Score:3)
The irony is ObamaCare is really 90s Republican (Score:4, Insightful)
I find it interesting that the principles of the affordable care act were almost entirely conceived of and proposed by the Republican part back in the 90s in response to the Clinton health care reform initiative which failed. And no matter what they claim, a Republican administration in Mass (Romney) largely implemented much of the ACA on a state level and it worked very well indeed. Why it would suddenly become so repulsive to Republicans I do not know.
During the time of the passage of the ACA, my coworker, who was going through cancer treatment and other health issues read the bill in its entirety and he felt it was not at all perfect but it was better than what we had. A lot of the FUD going around (still is) was just that. He was comfortable with the bill as passed, even if the majority of congress critters seemed to not be familiar with it. I'm glad the supreme court upheld it. It the Republicrats want to get rid of it, they need to do it the proper way, and replace it with something better. No, going back to the status quo will not work. If they would propose a better, more equitable plan, I would support it. But so far they seem to be offering absolutely nothing. If they manage to get the White House, it will be over a campaign promise to roll things back to the good old days and then do absolutely nothing. The last part sounds good actually.
During the FUD and absolute crap going around during the passage of the ACA, many people talked about socialized systems in other countries (who was it that said they'd move to Canada to get away from the ACA?). The irony of all that is that between the VA, Medicare, and Medicaid, the US gov't runs the largest socialized healthcare system in the world. And it's one of the most expensive. Maybe the gov't should merge them all together into one program, and then require all federal employees, including elected officials and the president and all his advisors to use it as their primary health care insurance provider and system. You can bet all the problems would clear up in a a matter of months! And it just might end up being a really good program.
ITT: Textualists of the world, unite! (Score:5, Insightful)
For another example near and dear to conservatives' hearts, consider the Second Amendment. The Roberts court has ruled (District of Columbia vs. Heller, 2008) that the Second Amendment establishes an individual right to carry arms, despite the fact the amendment only mentions carrying arms in the context of a militia.
With the current case, the intent of the law was clear (and most of the drafters are still around to ask), so that's what SCOTUS used. Judges aren't just implementations of parsing algorithms that spit out yes or no results based on the text of the laws.
This a win for individual freedom folks (Score:4, Insightful)
This ruling is actually very good for individual freedom. I'm happy to see that the supreme court made an intelligent ruling. I'm 54 and semi-retired. I have pre-existing conditions and if we went back to the way things used to work, I'd have to become employed full time again, or emigrate to the UK where I also
have citizenship.
I hate everything American employment stands for. Age discrimination, employment-at-will, invention agreements, covenants not to compete, and binding arbitration to name a few.
Re:This a win for individual freedom folks (Score:5, Insightful)
the nutty thing is, many americans believe freedom basically means no fucking rules whatsoever. which is not a state of freedom, but a free-for-all where a few win big and most lose. or the ability to freeload: they broke their arm, they go to the emegency room, then avoid the bill or declare bankruptcy because they want the "freedom" to not pay health insurance and pass the bill onto the rest of us
many americans believe freedom is "freedom" from consequences for irresponsibility. they are merely announcing that they don't understand what real freedom is
actual, real freedom means the ability to live a life genuinely *free* of pocketbook crippling or early life ending disease or infirmary
and to arrive at that, you have to have insurance. to not have that is not freedom, it's freeloading. because if you are injured or sick, you *will* go to the hospital because the pain is more powerful than your shallow teenaged "principles", and we *will* treat you, because we're not a cruel social darwinistic society, despite the fact some ignorant sadistic assholes wish it was
basically the status quo of the pathetic american healthcare system is the product of immature morons who don't even really understand what freedom is even as they whine and shout about it most loudly. the usa needs to have a single payer universal healthcare system like canada, uk, germany, etc.: all our common sense peers, yesterday
that we don't is only a sign of how fucked up we are because of propagandized immature morons who don't understand basic economics (healthcare is a natural monopoly) nor true freedom
Re:This a win for individual freedom folks (Score:4, Insightful)
The infection vector is talk show radio. All the service employees driving from job to job in their work trucks tune in. The lines are carefully scripted in a way which on the surface makes sense, but once you research them further, only have one goal in mind: To enrich the .1 percent.
Re:This a win for individual freedom folks (Score:4, Insightful)
it is absolutely amazing how the corporate agenda can take the shallow prejudices and hate of the common low iq idiot and spin out of that rabid support for policies which ensure the idiots die earlier and lose money. it's a craft how they play the morons so well
to all our detriment sadly
i hope some of them begin to notice. even the fucking solidly dumb can slowly and dimly become aware of the obvious and the fact they are being robbed... for "freedom"
Re: (Score:2)
Here is the thing, I am fine with you not having healthcare as long as you are willing to not have a right to doctor care without paying for it up front if you dont have health care. Heart attack and no insurance, oh well stay home and die if you cannot pay for it up front.
Why should the rest of us pay for you to sit there smoking and eating all day into an early grave because you did not want to pay for health insurance, but still expect to see a doctor in an emergency.
also the amount changed is not unreas
Re: (Score:3)
Since the employer mandate has not kicked in yet I am pretty sure that is not the ACAs fault.
I also do not believe that yur coverage went up that much.
Also an illegal alien cannot get healhcare for free in general, you are making shit up.
Re: (Score:2)
So in other words I was correct, in general, an illegal alien cannot get free healthcare, it is only in the limits of the state of CA.... In addition the bill you are talking about is mostly targeted to minors, who you cannot really blame for their parents breaking the law.
Re: (Score:3)