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The Supreme Court gave President Obama a reason to be giddy about the status of his signature health care legislation on Friday, upholding Obamacare subsidies for individuals living in states without state based Obamacare exchanges. He promptly held a presser at the White House, beaming that the Affordable Care Act was “here to stay.” Now, it appears he’s taking his victory tour to Tennessee. Rep. Diane Black (R-TN), a former nurse, suggested that maybe the president should have done a little research before choosing her state to promote his pride and joy. “During his visit to Tennessee, perhaps President Obama...

--SNIP-- Scalia’s point is central to understanding the backwardness of this ruling. Obamacare was written with the language Scalia described for a very specific reason. The goal was to coerce states into creating their own exchanges by tying access to federal subsidies to the creation of state-specific Obamacare “marketplaces.” Recall Jonathan Gruber, the MIT economist and architect of Obamacare, who became a household name when it was revealed that he mocked the “stupidity of the American voter” for believing Obamacare wouldn’t ban their insurance plans or increase costs. He also stated in January 2012: “I think what’s important to remember...

".............................Between a rock and a hard place, Roberts argued that Congress surely never meant to cut out subsidies in states without their own exchanges, because “it would destabilize the individual insurance market in any State with a Federal Exchange, and likely create the very ‘death spirals’ that Congress designed the Act to avoid.”I sympathize, but Roberts has to know he’s wrong. Jonathan Gruber,an MIT economist who advised the White House, explained during a 2012 speech that the federal law limited subsidies to enrollees of state exchanges in order to “squeeze” states to act. Quoth Gruber,“If you’re a state and you...

The Chief Justice again rewrites ObamaCare in order to save it.For the second time in three years, Chief Justice John Roberts has rewritten the Affordable Care Act in order to save it. Beyond its implications for health care, the Court’s 6-3 ruling in King v. Burwell is a landmark that betrays the Chief’s vow to be “an umpire,” not a legislator in robes. He stands revealed as a most political Justice. The black-letter language of ObamaCare limits insurance subsidies to “an Exchange established by the State.” But the Democrats who wrote the bill in 2010 never imagined that 36 states...

So the Supreme Court has upheld the subsidies and taxes under Obamacare in states that did not establish exchanges, despite the text of the law requiring that those subsidies and taxes apply to states that established exchanges. This is not very surprising. We have not been publishing or writing much about the King v. Burwell because I was confident – I thought it was a 1 in 5 shot, and I believe Michael Cannon thought the same – that SCOTUS would uphold the law no matter the facts of the case. In the short run conservatives may feel depressed about...

Good news from the Supreme Court today: If you like your health care subsidies, you can keep them. If you like limited government and the separation of powers, you are out of luck. Now that Chief Justice Roberts and five of his colleagues found that the phrase “Exchange established by the State” means “Exchange established by the State or the Federal Government,” we should henceforth follow Justice Scalia’s suggestion that this act of Congress, which had to be passed before the People knew what was in it and then had to be rescued not once, but twice, by a complicit...

How many DNC Govs set up failed , un needed Health Care Exchanges?

A House Republican on Thursday proposed forcing the Supreme Court justices and their staff to enroll in ObamaCare. Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas) said that his SCOTUScare Act would make all nine justices and their employees join the national healthcare law’s exchanges. “As the Supreme Court continues to ignore the letter of the law, it’s important that these six individuals understand the full impact of their decisions on the American people,” he said. “That’s why I introduced the SCOTUScare Act to require the Supreme Court and all of its employees to sign up for ObamaCare,” Babin said. Babin’s potential legislation would...

The Supreme Court had an opportunity, with its ruling in King v. Burwell, to determine whether the United States is a nation of laws or of men. Today, in a 6-3 decision, the Court ruled that we have devolved into the latter. Although the text of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) clearly states that the government may issue subsidies only through insurance exchanges established by the states, Obama administration bureaucrats unilaterally rewrote that part of the law so that the IRS could dispense such premium assistance through “marketplaces” created by the federal government. The plaintiffs in...

Justice Antonin Scalia strongly objected to Thursday's Supreme Court decision upholding the Affordable Care Act, so it was amusing to see Chief Justice John Roberts use Scalia's own dissent in the last major Obamacare case against him. It was buried in a footnote and amounted to a small dart lobbed Scalia's way, especially when compared to Scalia's blistering dissent that ripped Roberts' legal reasoning. To defend making the subsidies available to consumers everywhere, Roberts cited a line the dissent to the 2012 decision in favor of Obamacare, in which Scalia said, "Without the federal subsidies . . . the exchanges...

The Affordable Care Act “is here to stay,” as President Obama said following the Supreme Court decision in King v. Burwell that upheld the law in full. The justices could have ruled that federal subisidies—integral to the functioning of the law—were invalid in 34 states that rely on the federal healthcare exchange rather than running one of their own. Instead, the court ratified the status quo, which means nothing changes. But the controversial law still faces a bumpy future. Here are five challenges the ACA will face during the next several years: Healthcare costs are still too high. As many...

No excerpt. It's a PDF. Scalia's dissenting opinion begins on page 27.

  John Roberts is a liar. Acting as Obama's champion for the second time, The Supreme Court has upheld Obamacare. From the ruling: The argument that the phrase “established by the State” would be superfluous if Congress meant to extend tax credits to both State and Federal Exchanges is unpersuasive. This Court’s “preference for avoiding surplusage constructions is not absolute.” Lamie v. United States Trustee , 540 U. S. 526, 536. And rigorous application of thatcanon does not seem a particularly useful guide to a fair constructionof the Affordable Care Act, which contains more than a few examples of...

Like it or not, given today's Republican leadership, we probably got the best ruling possible from the Supreme Court, as it does not take a rocket scientist to know what our bunch would have done if the Court had struck down the subsidies, given their TOTAL INABILITY to stand up to Obama on anything else. Here's what would have happened: June, 2015: Interim Fix: No changes to Obamacare for the next 6 months (end of calendar year). Sure, some conservatives would want something in exchange, but the president will DEMAND that the first fix make no changes to His interpretation...

Six are the Chief, Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan.

(Snip) The Wall Street Journal just revealed the news about the Oversight Committee getting these emails in a major story. The key points are that Gruber was deeply involved in crafting the health care law, he worked very closely with the White House, and, when he became a political liability, the president and his senior aides simply lied about it. Is that a big story? Not if you are a national TV network or major U.S. newspaper. Except for the Wall Street Journal, they maintained radio silence. Not a peep. A search of the New York Times shows zero hits...

The Supreme Court under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has been a conservative court. But even conservative courts have liberal terms – and the current term is leaning left as it enters its final two weeks. The court has issued liberal decisions in 54 percent of the cases in which it had announced decisions as of June 22, according to the Supreme Court Database, using a widely accepted standard developed by political scientists. If that trend holds, the final percentage could rival the highest since the era of the notably liberal court of the 1950s and 1960s led by...

Coach is Right has written extensively about the Affordable Care Act—ObamaCare—from its initial, unconstitutional passage by a Democrat controlled congress, through the disgraceful 2012 Supreme Court ruling which featured the inexplicable treachery of Chief Justice John Roberts. Sometime during the next week the Court will decide King v Burwell, a case which will determine whether the United States and the American people may still depend upon the Constitution to defend their liberty and rights from the unlawful schemes of a tyrant. On June 17th, CiR asked whether the Supreme Court would deliver one last ruling in defense of the illegal...

With the U.S. Supreme Court expected to rule next week on King v. Burwell, two Florida Republicans promoted alternatives to President Barack Obama’s federal health-care law this week. US. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., introduced the “Free Market Health-care Restoration and Coverage Act of 2015” on Thursday which repeals Obama’s heath-care law while keeping subsidies until 2017. "With the King v. Burwell ruling quickly approaching, I introduced legislation that would allow my constituents and Americans across the country to keep their premiums while House Republicans work on a real and permanent solution," Diaz-Balart said.

More than 220,000 Oregonians who buy their own health insurance are poised to pay higher premiums next year -- some of them a lot higher. State regulators on Thursday announced rates for people who aren't covered by their employers or government programs. And the news is not good. While some insurers proposed rates similar to or better than this year's, officials are ordering them to be raised -- saying they need to close a sizable gap between what insurers have collected and what they spend on claims. As a result, the least expensive "silver" plan premium available to a 40-year-old...