Posted on 01/30/2014 5:37:41 AM PST by afraidfortherepublic
Someone you probably are not familiar with has filed a suit you probably have not heard about concerning a four-word phrase you should know about. The suit could blow to smithereens something everyone has heard altogether too much about, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (hereafter, ACA).
Scott Pruitt and some kindred spirits might accelerate the ACA’s collapse by blocking another of the Obama administration’s lawless uses of the Internal Revenue Service. Pruitt was elected Oklahoma’s attorney general by promising to defend states’ prerogatives against federal encroachment, and today he and some properly litigious people elsewhere are defending a state prerogative that the ACA explicitly created. If they succeed, the ACA’s disintegration will accelerate.
Because under the ACA, insurance companies cannot refuse coverage because of an individual’s preexisting condition. Because many people might therefore wait to purchase insurance after they become sick, the ACA requires a mandate to compel people to buy insurance. And because many people cannot afford the insurance that satisfies the ACA’s criteria, the ACA mandate makes it necessary to provide subsidies for those people.
The four words that threaten disaster for the ACA say the subsidies shall be available to persons who purchase health insurance in an exchange “established by the state.” But 34 states have chosen not to establish exchanges.
So the IRS, which is charged with enforcing the ACA, has ridden to the rescue of Barack Obama’s pride and joy. Taking time off from writing regulations to restrict the political speech of Obama’s critics, the IRS has said, with its breezy indifference to legality, that subsidies shall also be dispensed to those who purchase insurance through federal exchanges the government has established in those 34 states. Pruitt is challenging the IRS in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, and...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Another consequence of passing a 2,000 page bill without having read it first.
There’s already been one federal judge who was ruled “of course they meant that to apply to the federal exchange as well”.
And he’s absolutely wrong.
I don’t have references, but I distinctly remember that, in order to get the CBO cost number under the magic $1T mark, one of the modifications to the bill was to not provide subsidies for the federal exchange, assuming (hoping) that the states would all run their own exchanges. Or perhaps they intended to change it after the fact, once the numbers no longer mattered, but by then, they didn’t have the votes.
In any event, Congress intentionally excluded the federal exchange from using subsidies, and the IRS regulations and the lower court ruling violate both the law as written and contemporaneous information regarding Congress’ intent.
I thought the four scariest words were “the Secretary shall determine...”
There needs to be someone, anyone who will object to unanimous consent required to bypass reading of any bill.
So far, not one single member of Congress, in either house, has shown the cojones to do it.
I agree. This is an open door to tyranny with a pen. With no defined boundaries, the wielder of the pen can pretty much anything.
I know this goes beyond the ACA, but generally speaking, I am most afraid when I hear a government employee say "I'm hear to help", lol.
Believe me, they don't know how to listen.
George is kind of late to the state/fed exchange subsidy/penalty party.
FR has been on this for months if not years.
“I’m hear to help”
Can you sight any references which confirm that is the correct use of the word ‘hear’?
They may have seen a likely 14th Amendment equal protections challenge that would, in a happy coincidence, result in the Courts ruling that the Federal exchanges must provide subsidies as well.
IOW they cunningly crafted the bill so it would produce an “acceptable” CBO score but would quickly be rendered moot by judicial fiat.
So like the saying goes, they didn’t really lie. It’s just that the truth changed.
God bless Oklahoma.
It doesn’t matter that the judge was wrong. An EO is an EO, and (effectively) supercedes all written law. That is what you need to really undestand.
>> Can you sight any references <<
No, he probably can’t. But on the other hand, hindcite is always prefect!
"Liverpool Care Pathway"....
130,000 elderly patients killed every year by ‘death pathway’, claims leading UK doctor
by Thaddeus Baklinski Thu Jun 21, 2012 10:02 EST Tags: euthanasia, patrick pullicino, uk
LONDON, June 21, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - An eminent British doctor told a meeting of the Royal Society of Medicine in London that every year 130,000 elderly patients that die while under the care of the National Health Service (NHS) have been effectively euthanized by being put on the controversial Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP), a protocol for care of the terminally ill that he described as a “death pathway.”
Whatever NSA files they’ve got on John Roberts, seems like they will allow this to pass as well.
I didn't make the original post....but could you repeat that? I couldn't here you.
There’s already been one federal judge who was ruled “of course they meant that to apply to the federal exchange as well”.
__________________________________________________
as Rush would say “Words mean something”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.