Posted on 03/05/2015 11:01:16 AM PST by Kaslin
One of the frustrating things about reporting on the King v. Burwell litigation is the difficulty explaining some relatively complicated legal concepts to an audience of non-lawyers. Jonathan Cohn of Huffington Post has come up with a pretty good analogy, though I don’t think it works quite the way he thinks it does.
First, to recapitulate the legalese. The Affordable Care Act works by mandating that people buy health insurance. To help ensure accessibility of that insurance, the statute creates exchanges where people can shop for policies. This is done in three sections of the law. Section 1311 mandates that the states set up these exchanges, and defines what they have to look like.
Congress, however, can’t constitutionally mandate that the states enact a law. So the law provides a backstop. Under section 1321, the federal government is authorized to set up and operate “such exchange” if a state fails to establish one.
So far, so good. But insurance is now mandatory, and insurance is expensive. So, for people with lower incomes, the ACA provides them with subsidies.
This is where things get tricky. The law provides subsidies for individuals who purchase insurance on exchanges “established by the state under 1311.”
You can probably see the problem with subsidies for federal exchanges here, but let’s turn to Cohn’s Joy of Cooking analogy:
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
Obamacare has been sold with the Ron Popeil logic of propaganda..
“SET IT AND FORGET IT”...
as the Republican Party REFUSES to address the massive voter fraud PROBLEM.... even at CPAC..
the question IS.... who is the most blameable for Obamacare..
you know.... made it possible, ensured it, greased it’s path, PROTECTED IT, enshrined it...
The Democrats -OR- the Republicans?...
SINCE... John Boehner and Mitch the snitch McConnell have FINANCED Obamacare.. ON PURPOSE..
Hard call to make.. BUT.. ding ding ding... the republicans WIN!!..
“The main question that the court will focus on is not whether Congress wanted to approve subsidies through federal exchanges, but whether they in fact did so.”
As there was insufficient time for anyone in Congress to study the bill before voting on it, due to its immense size, I would argue that very few even had the time to ponder who would receive subsidies.
Furthermore, there is a lot of evidence that the people who wrote the bill (Gruber), fully intended that only state-established exchanges would receive subsidies.
Now I need to make some pancakes!
The gov’t is the largest “monopoly” in the world...
Isn’t using gov’t coercion to subsidize state exchanges a huge case of monopolistic behavior that our Antitrust laws should be enforced upon.
Not to mention that the Fed is illegally using economic discrimination against private sector insurance companies...
This is FASCISM.
In a free society, the Joy of Cooking lets us substitute honey for sugar, but don’t forget we can also choose to not make pancakes at all and make steak and eggs instead.
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