Posted on 03/04/2015 1:57:17 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
Supporters of the Affordable Care Act gather in front of the U.S Supreme Court during a rally Wednesday. The court heard arguments in the case and is expected to announce its decision in June.
The Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday in a case that could end Obamacare subsidies for policyholders in a majority of states, including Texas, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Ohio. If the court sides with the plaintiffs, it would mean millions of people could no longer afford health insurance.
The challenge to the Obamacare subsidies comes in the case King vs. Burwell. The plaintiffs point to a passage in Affordable Care Act that suggests that the federal government can only offer premium subsidies in Obamacare exchanges established by the states.
Only 16 states and the District of Columbia established their own systems. The rest are run by the federal government. In most cases, that's because Republican governors and legislatures refused to create a state system.
If the court upholds the challenge to the subsidies, an estimated 8 million people, including Melissa Trudeau, her husband and four children could lose their insurance.
"We'd probably just have to maybe only insure the kids," she says. "There's no way we could afford to do all of us, insure all of the entire family."
Trudeau and her family live near Tyler, Texas, and pay about $500 a month for coverage in the federally run exchange there. Without subsidies the cost would be $1,100.
"I'm really worried about it because we pretty much live paycheck to paycheck and we have a little bit extra coming in here and there but nothing we can really count on," Trudeau says. "If they take away the subsidies, I really don't know what we're going to do then."
But Christine Eibner, an economist at the RAND Corporation, a think tank, says it's not just the people getting subsidies who will be hurt.
"It's important to keep in mind that this ruling could have implications beyond the number of people losing subsidies," she says.
"When younger and healthier people drop out of the market because they no longer have access to subsidies, that causes premiums to increase."
If the court rules that the subsidies are illegal, even people in the individual insurance market who do not get subsidies would see their premiums rise — including people who bought their insurance outside the federally run marketplaces.
"We see premiums increasing by about 47 percent," Eibner says.
She says that's because removing subsidies would cause the youngest and healthiest people in the federally run exchanges to drop their insurance. "And when younger and healthier people drop out of the market because they no longer have access to subsidies, that causes premiums to increase," Eibner says.
Because older and sicker people need more health care, they will do everything they can to hang on to their insurance. That raises costs for insurance companies and they raise their premiums in response.
"It would be a staggering blow," says Andy Carter, CEO of the Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania. He says it would be a blow to those getting subsidies in the federally run Pennsylvania exchange and a blow to hospitals, which would lose revenue. Carter says 4 out of 5 Pennsylvanians in the ACA exchange there get subsidies.
"The subsidies themselves represent a keystone to the whole Affordable Care Act structure," he says. "You lose those subsidies, and the whole thing just collapses."
U.S. hospitals have filed friend-of-the-court briefs in support of the subsidies. Carter says he's optimistic the Supreme Court will rule the subsidies are legal, but he is talking to Pennsylvania state officials about setting up a state-run exchange just in case. However, he says, opposition in the state legislature remains a hurdle.
Eibner, of the RAND Corporation, says states that didn't set up their own exchanges would take an economic hit by giving up the federal subsidies.
"The subsidies are bringing about [$400] million a month into the state of Florida and [$200] million a month into the state of Texas," she says. "Over the course of the year, this translates into billions of dollars."
The Supreme Court is expected to announce its decision in June. So far, the Obama administration says it has no plan and no executive-branch power to undo the effects of a negative ruling.
I know its around here somewhere.
I’ve got a novel idea. Screw all subsidies! Pay what the market requires, or don’t buy it. That’s what’s gonna happen when I’m king. I’m tired of paying for everyone’s subsidies, welfare, EBT cards, earned income credits, etc.
Interesting. Justice is supposed to be blind.
Determining the outcome of any case based on what its results will be is......actually.......ILLEGAL!
Yet, that’s what SCOTUS wants to do here.....as Kennedy asked what the results would be of a ruling for the plaintiff’s......he’s blatantly wrong to even ask the question or consider it as a factor!
The ruling is simply supposed to determine WHAT THE LAW SAYS - no more, no less!
That these considerations are even being discussed clearly says we are no longer a nation of laws........but it’s really been that way a long time.......how about Roe v. Wade?????????
A wonderful opportunity to let the free market solve the healthcare ‘problem’.
Problem needs to be written in quotes because insurance doesn’t solve the problem. Plus, it’s state, county and local laws that cause more than half the problem. FedGov is just icing on the cake.
For instance:
1. Why can’t non-physicians own medical practices?
2. Why aren’t doctor’s licenses universally recognize across state lines?
3. Why are hospitals granted local monopolies?
Think of how the wonderful, sorely abused Commerce Clause could fix all of these problems. The USA was meant to be a giant free trade zone.
Let it be so.
What is threatened is your subsidy, which was Obama's way of giving away Hundreds of Billions of dollars to Democrat voters while he cut healthcare to those who earned it through blood and sacrifice.
This is what happens when you vote for a bill without reading it.
What "both" parties?
Salud, Dignidad, Justicia .. paid for by the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health.
Anyone can own a medical practice. But only physicians can actually practice medicine. They are required to be licensed because we don't want kooks and pretenders running around practicing medicine. Most people are on board with that and agree doctors should be licensed.
2. Why aren’t doctor’s licenses universally recognize across state lines?
Because it's a function reserved to the states. It's up to the states not the feds to decide who gets to practice in their state.
3. Why are hospitals granted local monopolies?
They usually aren't. Most major cities have plenty of hospital competition. For example Nashville, has Vanderbilt, VA, St. Thomas/Baptist, HCA (Centennial, Southern Hills, etc), Williamson Medical Center, Suncrest, Metro General and probably some others.
But most states do employee a certificate of need system both for facilities and certain types of expensive equipment. The community limits the competition for a particular device or service because without the limit, it's not a good investment and the community ends up doing without. You don't really want so much competition that your hospitals are teetering on bankruptcy. It impacts quality of care.
I would love that. During my time in public broadcasting land, a lot of the overpaid pampered set would not know how to make it in any kind of broadcasting.
Why bother to speculate. Court has moved left. Roberts supported Obamacare.
If ObamaCare is struck down Nancy Pelosi should be tarred with her words “we have to pass this law to know what is in it.” Also the President should be tarred with the thought that implementing it quickly without knowing what it meant created harm that will make people suffer.
This is not about an evil Supreme Court, this is about Democrats and their arrogance.
Has Tennessee overturned AG Opinion Opinion No. 07-116? Are you a non-doctor owner of a medical practice there?
Because [licensing is] a function reserved to the states.
So the revolutionaries fought to over through a national tyranny only to invoke a state tyranny? How many doctors were licensed to practice in the 13 colonies? Pick any state.
Most major cities have plenty of hospital competition.
Hospitals are granted regional monopolies as a matter of licensing. State's have hospital licensing boards made up of existing licensees and political appointees whose job it is not to allow hospital competition. You've seen a CVS across from a Walgreens (they have them in TN, no?)? Why not a hospital across the street from another hospital?
And I wouldn’t be surprised if state lawmakers elected by these concerned but misguided citizens are as clueless about unique, 10th Amendment-protected state power to regulate, tax and spend for healthcare purposes as the voters who elected them are.
The following material is from a related thread and should help patriots to understand why lawless Obama’s activist justices were wrong to give the green light to unconstitutional Obamacare imo.
——————
The bottom line concerning Obamacare is this. Regardless what lawless Obama’s activist justices want everybody to think about the constitutionality of Obamacare, previous generations of state sovereignty-respecting justices who have addressed the issue of federal regulation of intrastate healthcare have clarified that the states have never delegated to the feds, expressly via the Constitution, the specific power to regulate tax and spend for healthcare purposes. This is evidenced by the excerpts below from case opinions.
Regarding the Obamacare insurance mandate for example, note the fourth entry in the following list, the excerpt from Paul v. Virginia. In that case the Court had essentially clarified that the feds have no Commerce Clause power to regulate insurance regardless if an insurance policy is negotiated across state borders.
”State inspection laws, health laws, and laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c. are not within the power granted to Congress. [emphases added]” —Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
“Inspection laws, quarantine laws, health laws of every description [emphasis added], as well as laws for regulating the internal commerce of a state and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c., are component parts of this mass.” —Justice Barbour, New York v. Miln., 1837.
”4. The issuing of a policy of insurance is not a transaction of commerce [emphasis added] within the meaning of the latter of the two clauses, even though the parties be domiciled in different States, but is a simple contract of indemnity against loss.” — Paul v. Virginia, 1869. (The corrupt feds have no Commerce Clause (1.8.3) power to regulate insurance.)
“Direct control of medical practice in the states is obviously [emphases added] beyond the power of Congress.” –Linder v. United States, 1925.
Also note that regardless that federal Democrats, RINOs, corrupt justices and institutionally indoctrinated attorneys will argue that if the Constitution doesn’t say that the feds can’t do something then they can do it, the Supreme Court has addressed that foolish idea too. Politically correct interpretations of the Constitution's Supremacy Clause aside, the Court has clarified in broad terms that powers not delegated to the feds, expressly via the Constitution, the specific power to regulate intrastate healthcare in this case, are prohibited to the feds.
”From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added].” —United States v. Butler, 1936.
Insensitive 50 IQ apes, Nazi goons, mass-murdering democrat commies, the KKK, Selma racists, butchers of American Indians, FDR jap-hating trolls and Donner party cannibals gather in front of the U.S Supreme Court during a rally for Buckwheat’s Affordable Care Act Wednesday.
“Established by the states” appears more than 10 times in the law. It’s not incidental nor is it a mistake.
I was watching a religious program Sunday evening. Manna Fest with Pastor Perry Stone. Stone said that his ministry’s insurance payments on his full time employees rose by SIXTY THOUSAND DOLLARS because of Obamacare this year!!! $60,000 big ones for one year, ADDED to what he was already paying to cover his employees.
Family and I have some electronics experience and are studying for amateur radio tests, radio circuits and antennas. Wish you were nearby, so we could help with equipment. We’re especially intrigued with medium frequency tech. (around AM range) and have quite a bit of remote ground space to play with. Not so much vertical, though (costs, distant but busybody neighbors,...), so cloud burning it will be.
I’m afraid I’m no radio guy but was a television person mostly, very little to do with the radio production directly. My first boss in engineering was a huge radio and HAM nut. I can understand the appeal.
Good luck with the tests and building. I know a little electronics but according to the dots, I am color blind. On top of that, my ASVAB way back when had my highest aptitude for electricity and electronics.
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