Posted on 06/25/2015 2:48:01 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The Affordable Care Act was drafted with extraordinary carelessness given its importance, and conservatives who say that the Obama administration has implemented it contrary to its plain meaning have strong arguments. So opined six justices of the Supreme Court, including its most liberal members, in King v. Burwell.
That is, unfortunately, the best thing about the majority opinion, which labors mightily to free the law from the inconvenience of its text. The text of the law authorizes federal subsidies on health-insurance exchanges “established by the state,” but does not authorize them on exchanges established by the federal government. Since most states have not established exchanges, reading the law the way it was written would limit the law’s reach. The administration therefore decided not to do so — and the Court has blessed its decision, and barred future administrations from revisiting it.
To reach this result, Chief Justice John Roberts first implausibly read “established by the state” to be an ambiguous phrase — Justice Antonin Scalia and the other two conservative dissenters thoroughly dismantled his arguments — and then chose the possible meaning that would best serve the act’s purposes. This second portion of Roberts’s argument has a superficial plausibility, but it too lacks merit.
His point is that in the absence of subsidies, the law’s regulations would destroy insurance markets. Congress, he writes, could not have intended for the law to have this effect. But the question of what Congress intended in the absence of widespread state cooperation with the law is surely the wrong one to ask, since there is little evidence that Congress ever considered the topic.
Justice Scalia also raises the obvious counter-example: the Class Act, the federal long-term-care entitlement that Congress passed as part of Obamacare. The Class Act did not work because it had the very features that Obamacare generally, read according to its text, would have: The affected market would be unsustainable. It had to be repealed. The point of this counter-example is that it is entirely conceivable that a law, properly interpreted, would work badly or have perverse consequences, and it is not the Court’s job to interpret away provisions of the law to make it come out differently. Roberts responds that that the Class Act was a small part of the larger law and that Congress really wanted its larger law to work. Perhaps embarrassment at the weakness of this retort is what led him to put it in a footnote.
A ruling that the administration had exceeded its lawful authority would not necessarily have led to better health-care policy or a smaller government. It would not, by itself, have repealed Obamacare. That means that the contrary ruling is not a defeat for free-market health care or limited government. What it is a defeat for is the rule of law.
Since the rule of law no longer exists, we are about to enter an interesting period in our country. The elitists will soon learn what it’s like to live in culture where laws don’t protect them from their actions.
That’s coming soon. That’s when the leftists will go full out bats**t crazy.
Didn’t matter how Roberts voted since Kennedy had made the deciding vote.
As baldly inane as that opinion was I can’t help but imagine the author was mocking it!
IIRC, when the initial ruling from SCOTUS was made years ago, Roberts was the swing vote. The story back then was that the Obama Thugministration had some kind of hold on Roberts’ family—I think it was something to do with his children and/or adoption.
The man doesn’t deserve to be called “Justice”, and the American people do not deserve this “court”.
Every time I see that s**t eating grin on Roberts face, it makes me want to puke. He makes Earl Warren look good.
[[With this ruling he has pretty much abandoned his reasoning from the first ruling by declaring that he simply can not let congress fail in their intent. IOW, if they create bad law, but have good intentions, he’ll make sure the law is crafted correctly.]]
This is exactly what I’ve been saying for awhile now- the left, and all those creeps who support them, like Roberts, no longer even care if they are caught in hypocrisy- no longer care if they are caught in lies- they KNOW that NOONE will do a damn thing about it-
It used to be that the left at least tried to disguise and hide their evil deeds- but no longer! They now view ‘getting caught’ as a badge of honor when they REFUSE to apologize, or rescind, or correct whatever it is that they were caught at-
The moral compass I nthis ocutnry has been smashed to pieces- and now the bible’s prophecies that men will love the darkness and hate the light is coming true- LIES are the new ‘truth’ now- and anyone that tries to defend actual truth and justice are vilified, ostracized and bullied into compliance
[[Since the rule of law no longer exists]]
Ah but the rule of law DOES exist- THEIR law- not actual law- they WILL enforce THEIR law- no expense spared-
and to further this rant the Democrat Congress shoved this thru on Christmas Eve before the Mass Senator could get seated to block it.
John Roberts “in his decision” is a liberal hack.
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