Posted on 06/25/2015 2:53:03 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
With his opinion in King v. Burwell, Chief Justice John Roberts has sent a clear message to Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi: “You can count on me.” Or, to use the language of younger readers, “I got your back.” In the face of clear statutory language indicating that federal subsidies are available only for insurance plans purchased through “an Exchange established by the State,” Justice Roberts — and five other justices — rewrote the law to enable tax credits for insurance purchased through federal exchanges as well.
In so doing, the justices not only saved the individual mandate, they essentially saved Obamacare. Had they ruled the other way, Americans living in the 34 states without a state exchange could no longer have purchased subsidized insurance on the individual market. As a result, the cost of the insurance would have grown to the point where consumers would no longer be required to purchase it. Under Obamacare, the individual mandate does not apply if the cost of insurance exceeds 8 percent of the taxpayer’s income.
This result would have been catastrophic for Obamacare — gutting a key provision — but whether it would have been catastrophic, meaningless, or even potentially beneficial for individual Americans would have been entirely up to the elected branches of government. After all, a Supreme Court decision applying the clear language of the statute wouldn’t have mandated any particular congressional or presidential reaction. Congress would have been free to reform Obamacare, rewrite it to include federal exchanges in the subsidy scheme, or enact entirely new policies.
The Supreme Court, however, decided not to take any chances on democracy, so — in an opinion long on insurance-economics analysis and short on statutory or constitutional reasoning — it effectively changed the statute. Why? Because of the entirely speculative real-world effects. Here’s Justice Roberts:
Here, the statutory scheme compels us to reject petitioners’ interpretation 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.
Yet this is pure conjecture on Justice Roberts’s part. He does not, in fact, know whether insurance markets would be destabilized because he does not know the congressional response to a contrary ruling. He distrusts Congress, so he’s going to “fix” their mess.
He made this distrust manifest earlier in the opinion when he took a swipe at the drafters, noting that Obamacare “contains more than a few examples of inartful drafting” and that “Congress wrote key parts of the Act behind closed doors, rather than through ‘the traditional legislative process.’” But despite (or because of?) this mess, the Court felt the need to preserve the Obamacare they wanted to see, not the Obamacare Congress drafted and the president signed.
The end result is rule by bureaucracy, with the backing of the courts. Recall that the genesis of this case was the IRS’s unilateral act of writing regulations that contradicted the statutory language by extending tax credits to insurance purchased on federal exchanges. The bureaucrats defied the democratic process, only to see their defiance validated by the highest court in the land.
While this may be progressivism, it is not democracy, and it is certainly not the government as outlined in the Constitution. Justice Scalia, writing in dissent, understood this well:
The Court forgets that ours is a government of laws and not of men. That means we are governed by the terms of our laws, not by the unenacted will of our lawmakers. “If Congress enacted into law something different from what it intended, then it should amend the statute to conform to its intent.” Lamie, supra, at 542. In the meantime, this Court “has no roving license . . . to disregard clear language simply on the view that . . . Congress ‘must have intended’ something broader.”
Given the Supreme Court’s role in preserving, protecting, and — where necessary — rewriting Obamacare, Justice Scalia proposes renaming it “SCOTUScare.” But the Supreme Court is but one part of an increasingly unified federal technocracy. The Court’s decision is distressing but predictable. After all, when it comes to progressive reform, they’re all in it together.
— David French is an attorney and a staff writer at National Review.
Fourth Graders would do better.
I never seen a case of black male so freakin obvious.
I wonder how Roberts can sleep at night and look his children in the eye? . . . he has almost single-handedly dismantled the foundation of the government designed to protect them.
He is one monumentally mixed-up dude.
Do we now have 3 legislative branches? Congress, Executive and Supreme Court?
With Congress being the weakest of the 3?
All that is left is the field dressing and the butchering processes.
Democracy and the rule of law is so last century. We now have rule by decree ratified by judges who determine outcomes and then back into a rationale. Obama has sold the future of the US for a bowl of Obama gruel and he should be treated as a criminal by future Administrations if any are not Marxist and communist.
Roberts made it clear in the last decision that it is up to Congress to change the law if they want to change it.
These idiot Republicans with all their outrage are an embarrassment.
If Congress would do its job there would be no need for Judicial activism.
Anybody who thought Roberts would change his position was delusional. BTW it was a 6-3 decision and even had he switched to appease the GOP political hacks who confuse a Conservative Judicial philosophy with a political one the outcome would have been the same.
bump
[[Fourth Graders would do better.]]
Believe me, his first act of treason against the USA was just as bad and asinine
“Roberts made it clear in the last decision that it is up to Congress to change the law if they want to change it.”
I think I recall this, and see the reasoning behind it. Congress did not need Robert’s go ahead, they could have made many many changes or got rid of the whole thing if they wanted to.
The Supreme Court is what it is, unfortunately.
What’s more unfortunate, is those sorry arsed traitorous RINO’s. Totally going against the grain of the voters and our traditional culture.
Figuratively speaking, I see the potential for a huge bloodbath at the polls next election with many Republicans voted out. We might wind up with a prez like Cruz, but he will have a dem congress to deal with.
I believe Roberts was stupid enough so that he and wife believed or were led to believe that they could bring into the US a couple of orphan children from eastern Europe by what can be called bootlegged nation travels. Once compromised for this purpose Roberts was easy/fair game for more blackmailing. This resulted in his further digging a political and personal hole by taking more booty and exposing himself at the entrance to the Bank of Malta with a briefcase. It is not much of a stretch to think he was about to deposit money received for his game changing decision on the first go around of implementing Obama care. I have the net photos of the bank scene and I would think such can still be brought out of archives.
-PJ
Worth restating. What this ruling validates is a bureaucratic tyranny far more invasive and ruthless than anything imagined by George III, imperial Russia, or even communist East Germany. The only thing it lacks is a fully militarized national police to enforce its dictates. But they're working on it. Give it time.
Don’t get mad. Get even. Kick the RINOs and Democrats (ah, but I repeat myself) out of office. Put a conservative in the White House. Then we can start impeachin’ some judges. Until then, we’re basically screwed.
shame on you people that didn't vote Romeny in....this is on you....all of it...everything that is happening is on YOU.
don't be too hard on him......*sigh*
he's a traitor and an evil sob, period...he has put the knife at our childrens throats and their children as well....
"mixed up" would not be the words I would use....
Assuming they took up that task, what are the chances the current president would approve it?
America died long ago. This is an abuse of the corpse.
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