Posted on 03/04/2015 10:30:33 AM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
The Supreme Court appeared sharply divided Wednesday as it began hearing arguments on the fate of Obamacare.
Justices seemed “bitterly divided” during “heated” arguments over the law, reported The New York Times. If they rule that the federal subsidies the Internal Revenue Service has doled out for Obamacare plans are illegal, millions of people would no longer be able to afford their plans, and the entire law would be crippled.
The four liberal justices indicated strong support for the Obama administration’s position, in opposition to the most conservative members of the court. Those four will likely have to win over either Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., who didn’t say much, or Justice Anthony Kennedy, who said he’s not comfortable with the administration’s position.
The law states that only people who buy Obamacare “though an Exchange established by the state,” are eligible for subsidies, but the IRS has subsidized plans for millions of people who purchased them through the federal exchange.
The law’s challengers argue that language effectively bars subsidies for plans bought through the federal exchange, but the Obama administration argues that the bill clearly intends for subsidies in all 50 states.
Kennedy indicated he doesn’t favor the administration’s argument, but also isn’t comfortable with the challengers’ argument. “Your argument raises a serious constitutional question,” he told Michael Carvin, who is representing the challengers against Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr.
House Republican chairmen Paul Ryan, John Kline and Fred Upton, who are leading a group of Republicans tasked with finding an Obamacare replacement, attended the arguments. “We are here today because the Obama administration forced a flawed and partisan law on the American people,” they said in a joint statement.
“Its implementation has been one problem after another, and today’s case underscores just how far beyond the law the administration has gone to prop up this fatally flawed plan. The law is clear — and the Supreme Court should order the IRS to enforce the law as it is written.”
If they strike it down the first poor sucker to lose his subsidy, lose his coverage, get sick and die will be plastered all over the headlines as “Killed by Chief Justice Roberts”.
He is gonna uphold this. Even if it requires greater contortions of logic than the last case.
All it’ll take is a couple of phone calls and another blackmail and the divide will close pronto.
It’s going to be interesting to see whether the SCOTUS commie pig activists or the real judges win this one.
Passing along the mandates to the States was always an element of the fiscal gimmickry to get Obamascare to come in under the bogus amount, where the “nonpartisan” Budget Office could justify it under the useless static methods... Otherwise, due diligence would’ve been done to see how many States would likely have participated in order to build in Federal subsidies is under the law – however, this would have made too much sense for a Government program, not to mention blowing the rationale right out of the water :-|
What does that have to do with my point?
History tells me the Supreme Court will “fix” the ACA wording by deciding words mean what they need to mean now, not what they were meant to mean or what they actually mean.
It is harder and harder to see how anyone can honestly say we live in a Constitutional bound Democratic Republic when the SCOTUS has become our unelected legislators and congress little more than court jesters....pun intended.
Clearly, liberals will be liberals.
The problem with all of this is Justice Kennedy. He is only a swing vote when the consequences are small, otherwise he sides with the liberals who then have the majority.
Many people curse Roberts for “supporting Obamacare”, while he did the *one* thing he could have done to at least sour the victory of the liberals. By voting in favor of Obamacare, Roberts, as chief justice, could assign writing of the opinion to himself, which he did, then insert “poison pills” into the law, which he also did.
Kennedy wanted to be the deciding vote for Obamacare, and was livid at Roberts for stealing his thunder, so he voted with the conservatives. He wanted to give the liberals everything they wanted.
In any event, with this current case, the same problem is happening. Kennedy wants to let Obama do anything he wants with Obamacare. But Roberts is looking for some way to sabotage it.
Roberts may have no choice but to again vote “in favor” of Obamacare, but again, just so that he can undermine it.
So what? Bad decisions have bad consequences. Why should I continue to be punished for someone else's bad decisions?
This case before the Supremes has NOTHING TO DO with the Constitution.
Well, you said that half the court doesn’t care what the Constitution says it doesn’t say. What does that have to do with this case?
Jamie Dupree’s typically nauseating pretense to impartiality aside, what the hell business is it of the courts what effect their ruling may have? They’re supposed to be ruing on legality of the case.
Seriously?
I can see his point - this isn’t quite a matter of the written law vs the Constitution,
this is a matter of the written law vs ignoring the written law in favor of what the libs want it to be.
All shouting aside, the fact that four of the supreme court justices who will be ruling on this case clearly do not believe that the document that has provided the foundation for our legal system for the past 200 years means what it clearly says does speak to their mindset, don’t you think?
I can see his point, too. But he clearly does not see mine.
I may be Pollyannaish here, but isn't it the job of the Supreme Court to delve into serious constitutional questions?
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