[stanne]

Geeze. Too bad we only have one political party; we could have defunded it with an opposition

Well, at least the guys got in some texting time and manicures at the Sebelius hearing yesterday. A lot of empty words

[pallis]

It’s a law that isn’t being applied evenly and fairly, and therefore I’m not playing. Exempt one, exempt all, or toss this fascist piece of crap.

[Da Coyote]

They’d win in any court that doesn’t have “kangaroo” as a prefix.

However, in the era of the Obamadork and his West Wing Clown Show of Felon/Cretins, there are not many courts fortunate enough to have avoided the appendage.

[MortMan]

The second attack is even sillier. After all, the law does not force anyone to take birth-control pills or undergo pregnancy screening. If a person does not want those procedures, the remedy is easy: Don't take birth control pills and don't undergo medical procedures you don't want!

Mike Shedlock is an idiot. Here, he is saying that PAYING for contraceptive and abortion coverage (in your premium) doesn't abridge one's religious rights, no matter whether such things are considered sin in your religion.

He is stupidly ignoring the forced providing of money to support these things in order to focus on the personal choice whether to use them. If one pays into a fund to hire a hit man, one is guilty of murder, under the law. But to Shedlock, if the victim is not yet outside the womb, it's no longer murder.

[Farnsworth]

Courts packed with liberal activist judges, they are required by the liberal agenda to uphold this law regardless of the cost.

[G Larry]

Unilaterally granting waivers and delays to a law passed by Congress, to benefit your friends and supporters is UNCONSTITUTIONAL!!!

[Orangedog]

Waste of time. It would have to make it’s way past the supreme court and obamacare isn’t going to be struck down there until the NSA is ripped out at the root and burned down to ash. It’s a little obvious that they used the NSAto compromise roberts. Why else would he go from visibly objecting to a state of the union dress down from obama to changing his vote to support obamacare? Other whistleblowers before Snowden have said the NSA were wiretapping high court judges.

[zeestephen]

ObamaCare imposes a “fine” on people who do not purchase health insurance.

Last week, I read that the ObamaCare law specifically does not allow the IRS to collect the ObamaCare fine via a civil or criminal lawsuit.

Thus, according to this report, the IRS cannot garnish your paycheck or put liens on your property to collect the ObamaCare fine.

According to the article, the law allows the IRS to collect the fine ONLY by subtracting money from a person's tax refund.

Thus, if you are careful about your withholding and estimated taxes, if you have NO tax refund due at the end of the year, the IRS has no way to collect your fine.

Has anyone seen a follow up on that story?

Seems almost too good to be true.

If true, however, it raises an important legal question.

Chief Justice John Roberts upheld ObamaCare by claiming that the “fine” is actually a “tax.”

But, if the IRS has NO coercive statutory power to collect John Robert's “tax,” how can he still claim that the “fine” is a “tax?”

With almost no effort, 100% of the people who are “fined” can avoid paying the “fine.”

[redpoll]

It all works to the advantage of Obama and the left in their march toward consolidation of the federal government. If Obamacare remains on the books, there is a platform for increasing totalitarian intrusion into the lives of individuals. If any of the court challenges block all or part of the law, there will be chaos and confusion, which will lead the left to scream for a simple system where the government runs all medical care, period. Viola. It’s all good. For them, that is.

[Mack the knife]

But 36 states have decided against opening exchanges for now. Although the law permits the federal government to open exchanges instead, it does not say tax credits may be given to those who buy insurance through a federally run exchange.

---

The ACA authors wanted all the States to have their own exchanges. To make sure this happened, the ACA contained a carrot, two clubs to hit the State over the head with, and a linked provision:
1) If a State built an exchange, and people signed up for Medicaid, the HHS would fund it for the first few years;
2) if a State didn’t open an exchange, all medicaid payments would be withheld;
3) if a State didn’t open an exchange, the State citizens would not get subsidies.
4) if a full time employee of a [more than 50 full timers] company was not offered healthcare insurance, and signed up on an STATE exchange, the company would be fined.

The little bastards thought they were being clever to capture every State into Obamacare — they didn’t think that a single State would refuse, but just in case they added the Federal Exchange capability, not completely thought out ... so maybe they were too clever:
* Roberts (7-2) declared item 1 to be unconstitutional - HHS could not withhold medicaid payments (different law)
* Big businesses went to State Legislatures and said: “hey — no exchange, no fine on us.”

So 36 States looked at the cost of setting up and funding the exchanges, the uncertainty of more medicaid funding, the [no exchange no fines] feature, and said ... no thanks.

Now the ACA authors have observed that the club [no exchange, no subsidies] has turned into a carrot [no exchange, no Fines!], and are now claiming that they were just kidding, they really meant to have subsidies (and thus fines) even for the Federal Exchanges for States that don’t have their own. They are arguing that the text of the law is trumped by the objectives of the law, and so the Supreme Court should rewrite the law for them.

They have a problem: the plain reading of the text of the law is against them