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“The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.” ~ Abraham Lincoln
Posted on 07/24/2014 9:01:11 AM PDT by Starman417
I must disagree. The principal supporters and drafters of the ACA would have favored single payer, but they quite simply did not have the votes in Congress for a complete federal takeover; that is why we do not have single payer right now. They also recognized that they could not straightforwardly force the states to set up exchanges, because such a federal mandate on the sovereign states would be clearly unconstitutional There were also Democratic Senators, IIRC led by Ben Nelson, who explicitly preferred retention of a robust state role, and the ACA's state-centric exchange model was a deliberate accommodation of this faction (at a time when every vote counted). For all these reasons, the drafters created an OPTION for the states to create exchanges, and -- hoping to make this the preferred choice by most or all of the states -- created the differential treatment of subsidies as an incentive (or bribe).
In other words, the provision that subsidies are available ONLY in exchanges created by a state was a perfectly deliberate ploy. It was, essentially, a baited trap. The ACA backers were astonished when two thirds of the states did not take the bait, and they have been trying to wriggle out of their own handiwork ever since.
The 4th Circuit opinion is appallingly bad. In saying that it would overlook the clear language of the text and interpret the law more broadly, to reflect the imputed intent of the Congress, is to simply suppress the legislative history. It is true that the core backers of the ACA preferred single payer and, short of single payer, a universal system of mandatory exchanges. But those options DID NOT command sufficient support in Congress at the time. When the 4th Circuit nonetheless asserts that this was Congress' "intent," it is misrepresenting the record.
The intent of the Congress is what the Congress as a whole chooses to enact. It is often the case that a majority of the majority might prefer to go further, but it is also very often the case that the majority of the majority is a minority of the whole, and has to compromise to move forward. What the 4th Circuit has done is to assert that the view of the majority of the majority is the intent of the whole. That is an utter falsity. Whether our judicial system retains the integrity to make this distinction is the question of the hour.
To argue intent is disegenuous considering even the speaker admitidly knew not what was contained in the bill.
I don’t see how the courts could order the expansion of Medicaid because it is a state administered program and the federal subsidy for the expansion is due to expire in two years,
I have not been able to find any information on how the Feds are treating the the subsidies for people in the gap between the UN expanded Medicaid and the federal subsidies. Are they simply providing full subsidy for these people? If so, the Feds cannot simply withdraw the subsidies when the fed portion of the expanded Medicaid expires because, it is not Medicaid.
The speaker didn’t know, but someone wrote it. I’d guess when it comes right down to it, the speaker knew what was in it.... regardless of what she told the Press while trying to get it passed.
Also fundamental of judicial review is the separation of powers model. The separation of powers model should trump interpretation because the text itself is not ambiguous and the executive interpretation is diametrically opposed to the text. Letting the exective get away with interpreting legislative black as white or vice versa sets a very bad precedent. Not to mention that the Obama Administration is inconsistent in its own interpretation of the term “state” as used in the ACA if it holds in Halbig that the State means the federal government; see here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3183830/posts?page=10#10
so according to the Obama administration, black is deemed to be white in defiance of the plain text of the law, except when the administration deems black to be black. Or to be more precise, the IRS can hold that black is white while HHS can hold that black is black, and the courts should agree with the executive on both, and furthermore, establish that as case law precedent... hmm, what could possibly go wrong?
In the summer of 2010, IRS officials began working on rules to implement the PPACA’s premium-assistance tax credits. Like the statute itself, early drafts of their regulations reflected the requirement that tax-credit recipients must be enrolled in health insurance through an Exchange “established by the State under section 1311.”
~Newt Gingrich, 2012
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