Posted on 07/22/2014 10:32:52 AM PDT by maggief
The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that ObamaCare subsidies issued through the federal exchanges are legal, contradicting a separate ruling by the D.C. Circuit Court on the same day.
Fourth Circuit Judge Roger Gregory argued that because the statutory language of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is ambiguous, courts should defer to the interpretation of the Internal Revenue Service and allow the subsides to stand.
"Applying deference to the IRS's determination we uphold the rule as a permissible exercise of the agency's discretion," Gregory wrote.
The decision came just hours after the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals came to the opposite conclusion in its ruling. "Because we conclude that the ACA unambiguously restricts the section 36B subsidy to insurance purchased on Exchanges 'established by the State,' we reverse the district court and vacate the IRSs regulation," a three-judge panel ruled.
The conflicting rulings sets up a circuit split that could fast track the cases to the Supreme Court.
The fight centers on language in the healthcare law related to the distribution of subsidies intended to help consumers pay for insurance.
Conservatives challenging the law say it does not permit the IRS to provide the subsidy help through the federal ObamaCare exchange, which covers the states that declined to set up their own system for buying coverage.
Critics of the lawsuit reject that argument and say Congress clearly intended to provide subsidies to everyone in ObamaCare.
The outcome of the battle will have huge repercussions for the healthcare law. Experts estimate that the ruling against the law, if upheld, could block roughly $36 billion in subsidies for the roughly 5 million people already enrolled.
Some have speculated that consumers might even have to pay back the subsidies they have received from the government.
$7,200 each.
Liberals playing "I don't recall... I don't know" card. What do you mean the language is ambiguous? It's crystal clear.
LOL
Hopefully, this will not reach the Supremes until after the election. Either way, though, I'm anticipating with glee the wailing, moaning and gnashing of teeth that a positive SCOTUS ruling would produce from the commie crowd.
It’s gotta get through the En Banc requests and hearings. No way this gets to SCOTUS before 2015-2016 if they even take it.
Meh. I see this as all part of the Ezekiel 38-39 thing.
I saw these three in a row just before reading this story. We are no longer inching closer. Were at a full run.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3183597/posts
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3183596/posts
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3183595/posts
We are living in interesting times, getting more interesting with every passing day.
Yes I was thinking the same; $600 per month per person. And how much of that actually goes to health providers?
FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponents Argument
It's amazing that lawsuits being filed against Obamacare Democratcare are targeting technicalities, as opposed to addressing major constitutional problems with it. I suspect that the DC establishment and the corrupt media don't want low-information voters to find out about Congress's constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers, powers which don't include healthcare.
More specifically, what activist justices undoubtedly don't want voters to find out about Democratcare is the following. Before Constitution-ignoring socialist FDR nuked the Supreme Court with activist justices in the 1930s and 40s, previous generations of Constitution-respecting justices had clarified that the states have never delegated to the feds, expressly via the Constitution, the specific power to regulate, tax and spend for intrastate healthcare purposes.
State inspection laws, health laws, and laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c. are not within the power granted to Congress. [emphases added] Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States. Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
Inspection laws, quarantine laws, health laws of every description [emphasis added], as well as laws for regulating the internal commerce of a state and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c., are component parts of this mass. Justice Barbour, New York v. oo., 1837.
Direct control of medical practice in the states is obviously [emphasis added] beyond the power of Congress. Linder v. United States, 1925.
And for those misguided Democrats and RINOs who argue that if the Constitution doesnt say that the feds cant do something then they can do it, the Supreme Court has address that foolish idea too. Powers not expressly delegated to the feds, expressly via the Constitution, are prohibited to the feds.
From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added]. United States v. Butler, 1936.
As a side note concerning the federal government's constitutionally limited powers, please consider the following. The states would sure be a dull, boring place to grow up and live in if parents were to make sure that their children were taught about the federal government's constitutionally limited powers as the Founding States had intended for those powers to be understood. /sarc
Thomas Jefferson had put it this way:
Cherish, therefore, the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, judges and governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature. - Thomas Jefferson (Letter to Edward Carrington January 16, 1787)
In fact, forget about traditional salesman / sucker cliches like "buying the Brooklyn Bridge." Voters now have to deal with the problem that they have foolishly traded their votes for constitutionally nonexistent rights and federal spending programs based on constitutionally nonexistant federal government powers.
I assumed it was being paid directly to the insurance companies.
If congress “clearly intended” to provide subsidies to anyone anywhere they should have said that and not said “in the state exchanges”
“Clearly”, my azz.
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