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The Case That Could Topple Obamacare
Newsweek ^ | December 17 2013 3:05 PM | Pema Levy

Posted on 12/19/2013 2:29:24 AM PST by maddog55

Obamacare may have its problems, including more bugs than you can find in the cornfields of Nebraska, but its legal worries were meant to end after the Supreme Court upheld the individual mandate, the heart of the Affordable Care Act.

Now, as the technologists charged with making healthcare.gov work report progress, lawyers are re-entering the fray. A little-heard of challenge currently making its way through the court system may represent opponents’ last best hope of, as they are fond of saying, driving a stake through the heart of the law.

It all started in 2011, when Jonathan H. Adler, a conservative law professor at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, shot an email to his friend Michael Cannon, a health policy expert at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. Adler thought he had spotted an error in Obamacare that could unravel a significant portion of the law.

(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government
KEYWORDS: husseincare; newsweek; obamacare

1 posted on 12/19/2013 2:29:24 AM PST by maddog55
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To: maddog55

Fingers & toes crossed. . . .


2 posted on 12/19/2013 2:45:05 AM PST by DeaconRed (Back to FUBO. It is how I feel. I am still trying to come up with the perfect tag line)
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To: maddog55

[Carvin may be confident, but critics have variously called Cannon and Adler’s theory “preposterous,” “screwy” and a “Republican fantasy.”]

When Liberals use name calling - then they are saying the fight is over and the liberals lost!

This is good news - hope it stands and the ACA dies!


3 posted on 12/19/2013 2:54:04 AM PST by BCW (Salva reipublicae)
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To: maddog55

Calling John Roberts! Calling John Roberts! Clean-up needed in aisle 3! Bring your knee pads, boy! Calling John Roberts!


4 posted on 12/19/2013 3:03:09 AM PST by Standing Wolf (No tyrant should ever be allowed to die of natural causes.)
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To: All
A-n-o-t-h-e-r example that O/Care is OBAMA'S SOCIAL JUSTICE LOTTERY......and eminently prosecutable under those terms.

ANLYSIS Obama called Americans' cancelled health plans "substandard". Ergo, a good lawyer would construct his legal arguments around the fact that Obama means Americans must buy plans HE likes---plans he specifically designed to serve his social equity and income redistribution goals......

......same as a state lottery redistributes income to education, etc.....to achieve socially beneficial goals......

In Obama's calculated view, "some" Americans must now pay first-class fares for coach seats so that "hand-picked" Americans can pay less, and receive extra benefits.

O/Care induces every American into paying into the program. "Some" people win subsidies, tax breaks, deferments, exemptions, etc, while others are losers---excluded from these benefits.

Obama picking winner and losers raises legal questions that Obamacare is an illegal lottery. By picking winners and losers.....a court might decide O/Care is an illegal lottery.

===========================================

REFERENCE (I'm sure the law books have better examples): The following is an example of a Federal Statute defining Lottery:

According to 12 USCS § 25a, “lottery" includes any arrangement whereby three or more persons (the "participants") advance money or credit to another in exchange for the possibility or expectation that one or more but not all of the participants (the "winners") will receive by reason of their advances more than the amounts they have advanced, the identity of the winners being determined by any means which includes--

(A) a random selection;

(B) a game, race, or contest; or

(C) any record or tabulation of the result of one or more events in which any participant has no interest except for its bearing upon the possibility that he may become a winner. (SOURCE uslegal.com/lotteries)

5 posted on 12/19/2013 3:34:32 AM PST by Liz
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To: Standing Wolf


6 posted on 12/19/2013 3:41:53 AM PST by Iron Munro (Orwell: There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.)
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To: maddog55
President Obama is trying to do the exact opposite of what the law Constitution says,” Cannon said.

It's a lot broader than one instance.

7 posted on 12/19/2013 3:48:56 AM PST by gusopol3
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To: maddog55
It may seem like a small problem, but if true, it spells disaster for the Affordable Care Act. Without subsidies, health care on the individual market becomes unaffordable.

If a taxpayer is not paying for it directly, then he or she is paying for it with higher taxes in order to "subsidize" the purchase. Subsidies are a scam.

Why do people keep falling for the premise that anything the government gives them is free? Why do they not understand that their tax monies actually pay for that "free" stuff--after a sufficient amount is extracted to pay the bureaucrats to run the program--and more is extracted to pay for the items for non-taxpayers--so that the "free" stuff costs even more than it would if purchased directly?

8 posted on 12/19/2013 3:59:50 AM PST by exDemMom (Current visual of the hole the US continues to dig itself into: http://www.usdebtclock.org/)
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To: maddog55

You can bet that the solution will be to turn it into a REAL tax on real income just like Medicare....except it’s worse, you pay for the policy and the tax.


9 posted on 12/19/2013 4:00:45 AM PST by Sacajaweau
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To: maddog55
This case doesn't have a chance. The law is what the Muzzie-Marxist f@gg0t says it is. Liberal courts, including SCOTUS w/ John Roberts & Anthony Kennedy, won't go for it.
10 posted on 12/19/2013 4:02:38 AM PST by twister881
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To: Standing Wolf
I haven't read the case in detail, and don't know the legal standing.

But where are those “CJ Roberts, Super Genius” defenders lately?

Roberts folded last time, he will fold again and again (in defense of his indefensible Rule last time).

11 posted on 12/19/2013 5:09:09 AM PST by Sir Napsalot (Pravda + Useful Idiots = CCCP; JournOList + Useful Idiots = DopeyChangey!)
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To: maddog55

“No one but a lawyer could seriously stand up here and tell you that north means south, black means white and state means federal. And all you need to do is read the statute and know that that is what the law is.”

Well, Justice Roberts did in his interpretation that a mandate was a tax, when all along proponents of Obamacare argued that it wasn’t a tax.


12 posted on 12/19/2013 5:39:39 AM PST by randita
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To: twister881
"This case doesn't have a chance. The law is what the Muzzie-Marxist f@gg0t says it is. Liberal courts, including SCOTUS w/ John Roberts & Anthony Kennedy, won't go for it."

Afraid I agree. The solution to Obamacare and Obama's regulatory rule on so many fronts won't be found through the courts.

13 posted on 12/19/2013 6:45:17 AM PST by Truth29
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To: maddog55
“...kicking the case up to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.”

Is this the reason why Harry Reid changed the Senate rules on the Filibuster so that the 3 judges waiting for confirmation to the DC Court of Appeals could be installed?

14 posted on 12/19/2013 7:30:33 AM PST by ops33 (Senior Master Sergeant, USAF (Retired))
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To: Sir Napsalot
...where are those “CJ Roberts, Super Genius” defenders lately?

I believe most of them cried themselves to sleep quite awhile ago. They believed the whore loved them personally.

15 posted on 12/19/2013 8:12:24 AM PST by Standing Wolf (No tyrant should ever be allowed to die of natural causes.)
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To: maddog55

The article avoids two issues:

a) The Liberal belief system assumes that if you pass a law, people will obey it (that is how they ignore the actual results).

b) An integral part of the ACA was that, if a State refused to set up an exchange, then ALL Medicaid funds would be withheld (this was their stick).

c) the carrot was that when the States set up their exchanges, they could also get additional medicaid funds by relaxing their standards for eligibility, and their citizens would be eligible for subsidies. Note - if an employee took a subsidy, their employer was now subject to fines. See, it all fit together.

The ACA architects thought the carrot and stick were sufficient to force everyone not under Medicare into the ACA system.

Then Roberts ruled that the FedGov could not extort the States by withholding funds allocated under a different law (i.e., Medicaid) if a State did not set up an exchange. So 36 States refused to set up an exchange, and HHS and the IRS had to reverse course and plead that the plain language of the law did not mean what it said. [Are you going to believe me, or your lying eyes].


16 posted on 12/19/2013 10:16:28 PM PST by Mack the knife
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