Posted on 07/25/2014 9:07:31 AM PDT by Kaslin
Words mean what they say. That's the basis for the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Halbig v. Burwell invalidating the Internal Revenue Service regulation approving subsidies for Obamacare consumers in states with federal health insurance exchanges.
The law passed by Congress, Judge Thomas Griffith explained, provided for subsidies in states with state-created exchanges, but not in states with federal exchanges. That's factually correct, and under the Constitution, the government can't spend money not authorized by Congress.
This has not prevented Democrats from calling the decision "judicial activism," which makes as much sense as the claims that the Supreme Court decision overturning the Obamacare contraception mandate cuts off all access to contraception.
"We reach this conclusion," wrote Judge Griffith, "with reluctance." Judge Roger Ferguson, writing for the Fourth Circuit whose King v. Burwell decision upholding the IRS was announced the same day, wrote that those challenging the government "have the better of the statutory construction arguments."
One has a certain sympathy with both judges. They're being asked to overturn a regulation that has paid most of the cost for health insurance for some 4.7 million Americans. But the problem arose not from sloppy legislative draftsmanship.
Under previous court decisions, Congress can't force state governments to administer federal laws. So congressional Democrats, seeking to muscle states into creating their own health insurance exchanges, chose to provide subsidies only for those states. Those opting for the federal exchange would have to explain to voters why they weren't getting subsidies.
This attempt to muscle the states failed. In August 2011, when the IRS issued its regulation, only 10 states had created their own exchanges, and 17 states explicitly refused to do so. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius kept extending deadlines to force states to create their own exchanges.
Congressional Democrats and the Obama administration bet that they could force the states to do their will. When they lost their bet, the administration ignored the Constitution and ordered the spending of monies that Congress never authorized.
This was lawless behavior, and reckless as well. It promised to individuals acting in reliance on government regulations money that was subject to being clawed back if a court applied the statute as written.
The alternative was, to be sure, politically unpalatable. The administration could have gone back to Congress and asked it to authorize subsidies in states with federal exchanges. House Republicans, now in the majority, would have demanded other changes in the law.
So today the strongest argument for upholding the administration's reckless regulation is that people might be hurt if the law is enforced as written. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest says Congress meant to give money to lots of people -- so who cares what the law actually says?
The irony here is that the Obama Democrats, in passing Obamacare in its present form, and in betting that it could pressure the states into doing their will, have discredited big government generally and have weakened the federal government's power to commandeer and control the states.
They expected Obamacare to be popular. Give people what Mitt Romney called "free stuff," and they'll be grateful.
It hasn't turned out that way. Most Americans have bridled at Obamacare's centralized command-and-control approach and have instinctively preferred more market-based or locally regulated alternatives.
The fiasco of the healthcare.gov rollout and the administration's multiple suspensions of various provisions of the law have sapped confidence in big government's competence.
On the legal front, it has generally escaped notice that in its NFIB v. Sebelius decision upholding Obamacare, the Supreme Court also invalidated its Medicaid provisions -- and by a 7-2 vote that is unlikely to be overturned by one or two new Democratic-appointed justices.
Obamacare provided that states must accept new Medicaid provisions requiring higher spending or lose all their federal Medicaid money altogether. Not valid, said the justices. Congress can't take command of state governments by threatening to cut them off if they don't spend more.
Few legal experts thought this challenge to the statute would prevail. But it did, and it provides a basis for discouraging or challenging any future massive expansion of federal programs that require, as most do, matching spending by the states.
The Obama Democrats have succeeded in expanding government, temporarily. But they've also discredited it and provided a basis for limiting it in the future.
Buying a policy for every uninsured person would have cost us a fraction of what Obamacare has already cost.
For some reason, this reminds me of the scene in Cool Hand Luke where Luke holds up the tree-branch from which the snapping turtle hangs by his clenched jaws, and yells to the guard "look Boss, dead as hell and won't let go."
They haven’t lost anything yet. The Administration will request a rehearing by the full Appeals Court and they’ll overturn the three-judge ruling.
I was gonna say....show me. I’ll believe its dead when I see it.
I have always assumed that providing health care was never the goal...the goal was the destruction of private health care and private insurance.
That is why, even though we conservatives may think that some of the liberal statists who pushed for this disaster are crying (and some are, the dimmer ones) but the ones who really understand the true goals are secretly rejoicing.
They WANT this to be a major disaster, and when it is done, hospitals will be broke, private insurance will have left the sector, and people will clamor for the government to step in and fix it.
THAT is their goal.
Not just that the law means only what they need it to mean at the moment, but also that it applies to only whomever they need it to apply to at the moment. That's what SCOTUS would be codifying by overturning this and letting Congressional Democrats get away with this federal subsidy deceit.
They would be endorsing the practice of writing a bill one way out of necessity to get a compromise passed, knowing that Democrats can deny it later and get SCOTUS to write for them what they really wanted all along in the end.
-PJ
The appropriate question is, does the “common sacrifice” for it manage to buy its money’s worth? And the answer is yes, if that means its money’s worth of meddlesome government drones. As for actual health care, that is another question.
It’s satanic at bottom. And it STILL will be unfair, by the very measures of fairness that were proffered at the outset of this debacle.
Also, they needed the states to enforce the individual mandate, employer penalties, & changes to health care plans... It was unconstitutional w/o forcing the states to run state exchanges. Forbes, has a really good article:
hold on there. blues dont make money and insurance at this point pays the bills. who is building brand new digs. not the insurance companies.
. . . and that will drag the process out another year - according to plan.But as the WSJ pointed out a couple of days ago, the fact that Obama won in a different venue (notwithstanding that judge’s finding that:
Judge Roger Ferguson, writing for the Fourth Circuit whose King v. Burwell decision upholding the IRS was announced the same day, wrote that those challenging the government "have the better of the statutory construction arguments.”)means that it is not Burwell (i.e., the administration) but King who is in a position to appeal that ruling - and that King need not ask for an en blanc hearing, but could elect to appeal directly to SCOTUS.
I’m NOT a lawyer. But I believe the Supreme Court cannot/will not consider evidence that was not introduced at the appeals level.
Thus somehow, this needs to get into consideration. Not sure how...
He can but I thought I read somewhere where King is already planning his Supreme Court appeal. However there is no guarantee that the Court will agree to hear it.
Even the judge who ruled for the government in King admitted that he wasn’t going by what the law said, and was intended to say.
“It is the first time I’ve refused to comply with the law as I see it as immoral and unconstitutional. I cancelled my health insurance on January first and will never have health insurance until Obamacare is appealed. I will also never pay a penalty. I always end up owing the FedGov at tax time and will ensure that carries forward into the future.”
Wow, you ARE a rebel. I love it!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
