Posted on 03/02/2015 5:44:11 AM PST by GIdget2004
The Supreme Court’s credibility is at stake in Wednesday’s argument
While the Obamacare challenge being argued before the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday is not an easy case, it does hinge upon an inescapably far-fetched claim—one that, if it prevails, will cause deep, lasting damage to the court’s credibility in the eyes of about half the nation’s population.
I suspect Chief Justice John Roberts, Jr., won’t let that happen.
The challengers’ central argument in King v. Burwell is that the Affordable Care Act—the signature achievement of the Obama Administration and the most significant social legislation in a generation—must be given an interpretation that no legislator, no analyst, no journalist, and no pundit ever anticipated, aloud or in print, prior to its passage.
If accepted by the Court, this reading will immediately render the care provided by the Affordable Care Act unaffordable to about 7 million enrollees in at least 34 states. It would then likely force many health insurers to withdraw from the program (due to erroneous actuarial assumptions), while forcing those remaining to raise their premiums, in turn forcing still more enrollees to drop out, in turn forcing further premium hikes, and so on, in what health care economists refer to as a “death spiral.”
(Excerpt) Read more at fortune.com ...
That is an outright lie. There are public statements made by lawmakers and administration supporters during the writing of the ACA, detailing the carrot/stick approach of tax breaks for state exchanges only.
Because he doesn't want to go down in history as the man who thwarted "the first black president"'s agenda. Had Obama been white, Roberts would have slammed him.
If the SC determines that laws don’t mean what they say, then I think I’ll just keep my money instead of paying taxes this year.
Wikipedia actually has a decent description of the negotiation that led to the supposed "typo." It was not "stumbled upon" at all; it was intended compromise.
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act - Senate:
The Senate began work on its own proposals while the House was still working on the Affordable Health Care for America Act. Instead, the Senate took up H.R. 3590, a bill regarding housing tax breaks for service members. As the United States Constitution requires all revenue-related bills to originate in the House, the Senate took up this bill since it was first passed by the House as a revenue-related modification to the Internal Revenue Code. The bill was then used as the Senate's vehicle for their healthcare reform proposal, completely revising the content of the bill. The bill as amended would ultimately incorporate elements of proposals that were reported favorably by the Senate Health and Finance committees. With the Republican minority in the Senate vowing to filibuster any bill they did not support, requiring a cloture vote to end debate, 60 votes would be necessary to get passage in the Senate. At the start of the 111th Congress, Democrats had only 58 votes; the Senate seat in Minnesota ultimately won by Al Franken was still undergoing a recount, and Arlen Specter was still a Republican.To reach 60 votes, negotiations were undertaken to satisfy the demands of moderate Democrats, and to try to bring several Republican senators aboard; particular attention was given to Bob Bennett, Mike Enzi, Chuck Grassley, and Olympia Snowe. Negotiations continued even after July 7 — when Franken was sworn into office, and by which time Specter had switched parties — due to disagreements over the substance of the bill, which was still being drafted in committee, and because moderate Democrats hoped to win bipartisan support. Then, on August 25, before the bill could come up for a vote, Ted Kennedy—a longtime healthcare reform advocate—died, depriving Democrats of their 60th vote. Before Kennedy's seat was filled, attention was drawn to Snowe because of her vote in favor of the draft bill in the Finance Committee on October 15, but she explicitly stated that this did not mean she would support the final bill. Paul Kirk was appointed as Senator Kennedy's temporary replacement on September 24.
After the Finance Committee vote, negotiations turned to the demands of moderate Democrats, whose votes would be necessary to break the anticipated Republican filibuster. Majority leader Harry Reid focused on satisfying the Democratic caucus's centrist members until the holdouts came down to Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, an independent who caucused with Democrats, and Ben Nelson, a conservative Democrat, representing Nebraska. Lieberman, despite intense negotiations with Reid in search of a compromise, refused to support a public option, agreeing to vote for the bill only if the provision were not included, although it had majority support in Congress. His demand was met. There was debate among the bill's supporters over the importance of the public option, although the vast majority of supporters concluded it was a minor part of the reform overall, and Congressional Democrats' fight for it won various concessions, including conditional waivers allowing states to set up state-based public options such as Vermont's Green Mountain Care.
It's clear that the removal of federal exchanges (the "public option") was the result of compromises made to get the bill passed. Now, Democrats want the Court to say that they always intended for all states to get federal subsidies.
-PJ
> The American people really need to start taking the stolen power away from these black robed tyrants. The Founding Fathers NEVER intended for these activist bastards to have the power that they now have. These tyrannical fags have the power to trump everybody. Where the hell did that come from? It sure as hell isn’t in the Constitution or Bill of Rights.
When they are dragged from their thrones out into the streets and justice is rendered they will never ever want to treat the American people the way they have ever again. That time is coming.
The one thing that liberals never want to admit about their precious government - it uses the threat of deadly force to make the citizens comply with its will, and it’s “legal”, just like the holocaust was “legal”.
So, anything they want the government to do,
they are saying
“I authorize and approve of you to putting a gun in the face of the person that won’t comply.”
I’m convinced SCOTUS voted to overturn OC, and Roberts took it upon himself to draft the majority opinion. Then the Chicafo Mafia threatened him with exposure of his illegal adoption actions, and he caved. Scalia’s reaction and the tortured, illogical language in Roberts’ revised opinion reveal the craven cowardice at root.
Same blackmail, new day.
The dirtbag lawyer is right, but for the wrong reasons. John Roberts will never, ever overturn anything about Obamacare. He’s terrified of Hussein.
Repealing ObamaCare will not happen until after the 2016 election because we need a patriot in the White House to make that happen. If the GOP is smart enough to nominate its smartest and most visionary leader — Sarah Palin — they will win and Palin will have long coattails.
Once we conservatives get big majorities in the House and Senate and a patriot in the White House, the sky will be the limit. Obamacare will be gone. After that, Medicare and Medicaid can be done away with and Social Security can begin to be phased out.
110% Correct. An absolute straight out lie. It was a deliberate act on the part of Congress to get around any Tenth Amendment objections.
Roberts is a globalist NWO operative. He is a member of the Knights of Malta, aka Knights of St. Johns that made fortunes supplying the Crusaders during the 11th and 12th centuries.
The Knights of Malta are connected with Vatican globalists that support world government.
0-care is intended to destroy the US health care system, destroy the middle class via taxation, and control and cull the population via death panels and mandatory vaccination.
I agree. Roberts won’t have any problem upholding this time after the contortions he went through to rewrite it the first time around.
He compromised.
One does not become uncompromised.
The purpose of the GOP is to block conservatives from power.
They are not representing us.
They will nominate Jebbish.
This is the most effective means conservatives have to bring down this government. Were 100 million taxpayers to put their taxes in escrow rather than pay them to the gov there would be a cataclysm in DC that would bring about all sorts of chaos.
We must learn to actually read complex legislation before voting on it. That's all!
This, of course, is contrary to the stupidity of passing legislation so we can find out what is in it per Nancy Pelosi.
Will the Supreme Court again somehow save this deeply flawed and economically damaging legislation? I do not know.
My response, in general, to this article is, so what! If the court strikes down these illegal subsidies, we’ll just be back to square one. Another plan, hopefully which will not involve the federal government taking over one fifth of the US economy, will need to be developed.
That will happen only if the GOP lets them do it. The base is overwhelmingly Tea Party/patriot/constitutional/conservative.
We need to make ourselves heard.
Yep...very sad!
I am going to go onto a limb and say that Obama loses on the merits of the case. In today’s WSJ, there is an op-ed by JAMES TARANTO that Abe Gluck will argue “that unless the subsidies are available nationwide, ObamaCare is a violation of states’ rights”, thus unconstitutional. I doubt that Roberts will go there.
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