Obamacare’s Chances Of Survival Are Looking Better And Better

FIVETHIRTYEIGHT ^ | 03/06/2015 | Oliver Roeder

[SeekAndFind]

Solicitor General Donald Verrilli won Wednesday’s oral arguments in King v. Burwell, the latest challenge to the Affordable Care Act. Or at least that’s what the wisdom of the crowd is telling us.

When we previewed the case, the predictors at FantasySCOTUS saw it as a 5-4 reversal, with Chief Justice John Roberts essentially sitting on the fence. (A reversal could result in the loss of billions of dollars in federal subsidies that are helping millions of Americans in more than 30 states purchase health insurance.) Now, they see it as a 6-3 affirm — in support of the government. (Note, though, that Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy are still seen as on or near the fence.)

Here are the shifts in the predictions over the course of the past few days. The plot represents a rolling average of the last 200 predictions entered by FantasySCOTUS players. The proportion of predicted votes to strike a blow to the ACA fell sharply Wednesday.

Jeffrey Toobin gives an overview of the oral argument — and his reading of the tea leaves — in The New Yorker. He suggests that Roberts’s relative silence may have been the most telling of all. The crowd agrees.

Roberts was seen as significantly less likely to vote against maintaining the ACA than he was before oral argument. Kennedy, another swing vote, also came away seeming less likely to vote against the ACA.

JUSTICE	REVERSAL CHANCE BEFORE	AFTER
Scalia	91%	93%
Thomas	90	92
Alito	88	91
Kennedy	66	50
Roberts	53	43
Ginsburg	17	12
Sotomayor	17	12
Breyer	17	11
Kagan	16	10

Oral arguments have thrown us off the scent before, however. In the previous major ACA challenge, Verrilli’s performance before the court was panned. “He was passive,” Toobin told Politico in 2012. “He was stumbling. He was nervous. I was just shocked.” But Verrilli emerged victorious then.

Despite the shifts on King v. Burwell, the outcome is still up in the air. Josh Blackman, FantasySCOTUS’s creator, told me: “Going into arguments, I thought the case was a tossup. Leaving arguments, I still think the case is a tossup. And it looks like the players of FantasySCOTUS agree: It is a tossup.”

[Talisker]

” I’m anxious to see how they try to alter the plain definition of words”

I presume you read the Roberts opinion. You can’t get any worse than that.

Did YOU read the Roberts opinion, and understand the plain definition of his words? Because it doesn't sound like you did.

One Stone, Two Powers: How Chief Justice Roberts Saved America

[Organic Panic]

Boehner and McConnel are in charge. Obamacare’s chances have never been better. If the Burwell decision kicks states off the gooberment teat McConnel and Boehner will have emergency sessions to “fix” Obamacare.

[Trapped Behind Enemy Lines]

Elections DO matter!!!!!

If BHO had never been elected to begin with, we would never have to deal with Obamacare. What did the voters think was going to happen when you elect a Dem president and an overwhelmingly Dem Congress? National healthcare has been a Democrat objective since the days of Harry Truman. Also, with a name like Barack Hussein Obama, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist or even elaborate opposition research to figure out the guy is a radical with every intention of radically transforming America. He even said he was going to radically transform the country before he was elected. The voters have only themselves to blame for this giving us this radical left jackass. And we cannot depend on the SCOTUS do undo all of this crap. The voters got us into this mess, only the voters can get us out of it. Since the days of the New Deal, the Dem long term strategy has been to get as many people as possible dependent upon government.

The Founders of our nation tried to safeguard against democracy. Which is why they set up a limited government republic and why voting in federal elections was strictly limited to property owners.

[Political Junkie Too]

Thanks.

-PJ

[riri]

I am thinking they are going to be the only one’s left “insured”.

[Sans-Culotte]

There is the possibility that his adoption of his children from Ireland was illegal.

Again, so what if it was illegal? Just like millions walking across the border was illegal, but "it's too late to do anything now"; just like it was illegal for the Clintonistas to have hundreds of FBI files in their possession "we have no idea how those got here"; or Obama's campaign website in 2008 (and probably 2012) allowing contributions from anyone, without checking employment, nationality, etc.

I don't think he can be blackmailed at this point over the adoption of his children. Besides, if a problem with the adoption is common knowledge among FReepers, then everybody already knows about it. But, I suppose he could be threatened with the lives of his children. I just don't think he can be blackmailed in the sense of being threatened over the release of certain information.

I honstly believe he's gone Souter, and that the Bushes were hoodwinked by yet another liberal who was allegedly going to be conservative (i.e. neutral) and turned out to be a big wussie lib.

[stephenjohnbanker]

LOL.

Thanks.

[Talisker]

OK, I read the sententious load of shit.

Your need to spew foul-mouthed insults is all I need to know about your intellectual capacity. I have no doubt whatsoever that it is impossible for you to understand my analysis.

You're dismissed.

[stephenjohnbanker]

” is all I need to know about your intellectual capacity”

And I yours, sir.

[fortheDeclaration]

True.

[Fightin Whitey]

your intellectual capacity

This is what they call mixed signals--ha!

I stand by my earlier statement.

Cheers!

[Talisker]

And I yours, sir.

Don't you "sir" me until you can provide an actual legal critique instead of merely spewing swear words and making vague references to unrelated third party claims you can't even reference properly. You're nothing but an advertisement for the damages inflicted by a Common Core educational failing.

Here's a clue - if you want to win an argument, you have to start by actually making a point. Your interpretation of that process as making a generalized pledge of loyalty to someone else for something you can't specify identifies you as the rankest of collectivist-minded liberals - as does your filthy mouth.

[Talisker]

That is perhaps the single most perfect line of criticism I have encountered.

I could write it in the back jacket flap of three-quarters of the books I read.

Splendid!

People identify themselves by the level of ugliness and dishonesty that amuses them.

Thanks for sharing.

Oh, by the way, you do have an actual analytical reason for your support of filthy abuse, right? Some legal flaw you found in the analysis that invalidates it? And what exactly would that be?

I mean, otherwise you're just another liberal goon trying to help pile on abuse over something that totally destroys your lying position. And it can't be that - so, what legal flaw have you found that justifies your foul-mouthed slander?

Hmmm?

[stephenjohnbanker]

” spewing swear words”

One word, sir. You lie

” identifies you as the rankest of collectivist-minded liberals”

LOL!!!!

I am as conservative as ANY person at Free Republic.

I can’t be angry with someone so utterly obtuse.

You made my day.(No excrement! )

[Talisker]

” spewing swear words”
One word, sir. You lie
” identifies you as the rankest of collectivist-minded liberals”
LOL!!!!
I am as conservative as ANY person at Free Republic.
I can’t be angry with someone so utterly obtuse.
You made my day.(No excrement! )

--------------------------------

So not vomiting verbal filth is so remarkable for you that you have to make note of it in your post? Okay, it's noted. What do you want now, a cookie?

I told you not to "sir" me until you could provide a legal critique. I see no critique. Therefore, you asked for this.

Your first post started with an inflammatory insult of the basest level, of the kind you know damn well is not allowed on FR, or I'd give it right back to you.

Your second post attacks my intelligence. And your third post calls me a liar.

And why? Over my analysis of the Roberts decision. A vicious, slanderous, personal attack, repeated three times over... what, exactly? There was a lot in that analysis. Plenty of things for you to find fault with - right? So much fault that you could display them and identify them not just as errors in technical legal construction and interpretation, but errors so egregious that they made me deserving of ridicule, insult, slander and abuse.

Right?

So where are these failures of mine?

Oh wait, you don't have to come up with them, because per your excuse, you trust someone else's opinions on the subject in general, without addressing my specific focus, and without being able to link, reference or cite exactly what position that third party took that has anything to do with my analysis.

Like hell. You've shown yourself to be nothing but a punk. Worse, you're an intellectual fraud, and your a fraudulent conservative as well. In fact, what you are is a RINO. And RINOs get other RINOs to all agree together on re-interpretations of conservative ideas as collectivist constructs, while still using conservative terms to hide what they're doing. Intellectual sabotage.

Then, because they all agree - and only because they all agree, because they're actually collectivists of the lowest sort - they collectively support each other's lies.

And that's what you did. You had no argument, so you defaulted to insulting abuse right off the bat, and then you called in backup abuse. That's collectivism in a nutshell.

And you know damn well how these particular... how do you traitors put it? "nuances"? ...work. You even quote the dynamic on your FR homepage, when you reference Sowell saying: "An intellectual’s reputation, then, depends not on whether his ideas are verifiable but on the plaudits of his fellow intellectuals."

Yes indeed, but you left out the tiny little fact that Sowell was talking about LEFTISTS. And, wow, what a coincidence, then you went and declared as your own justification for abusing me, the exact same dynamics you quote Sowell as saying describes Leftists.

So yeah, you know what you're doing.

That's why in the rest of your FR homepage you wrap yourself so tightly with the flag your eyes bug out. Because you're actually a RINO, and you hold genuine conservatives in contempt as "obtuse" and believe you can fool them with your juvenile collectivist abuse and thuggery.

You know, it's actually possible to respect, in a limited way, a Leftist. Leftists don't hide what they are, like Nazis didn't. That's why Patton held a grudging respect for Rommel - Rommel didn't hide what he was.

But RINOs like you? Waving the flag and claiming conservatism while unleashing every filthy violation of God, Country, Religion, Decency and Honesty against real conservatives, trying to undermine their own understanding of the truth?

No, not even God has a word for you - you're unspeakable, and so is your collective of fellow RINO roaches. And you know it.

So run from the light, "sir," and keep dodging and weaving and spewing your lies and insults. Because when it finally finds you, the divine light WILL burn you - that is guaranteed. Traitors deserve no quarter, and will be given none.

[Fightin Whitey]

No one would know filth better than a nasty old pile of it.

Idiots often reveal themselves by raging fulsomely to themselves, to the tv set, to their poor abused families, even to the walls.

They’ll fume and spit most anywhere they feel safe from actual consequence, behind a keyboard, for instance.

That is because they are gutless, as well as witless and pointless.

Ultimately they are to be pitied: condemned to life with a coward’s mouth and a dead rotten heart.

[clearcarbon]

How many of the obamacare insured will have to die before that liberal curse is outlawed?

[octex]

Good post!

I appreciate your postings that are factual and relevant to the topic of the thread. I’ve learned a lot by reading them.