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Supreme Court Upholds Obamacare Subsidies
From the Associated Press:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the nationwide tax subsidies underpinning President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, rejecting a major challenge to the landmark law in a ruling that preserves health insurance for millions of Americans.
The justices said in a 6-3 ruling that the subsidies that 8.7 million people currently receive to make insurance affordable do not depend on where they live, as opponents contended.
Only Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito dissented.
Stay tuned to Ricochet for commentary on the ruling, including an appearance from Richard Epstein on today’s forthcoming Ricochet Podcast.
Published in Law
Republicans have actually been trying. The House has voted multiple times—see here for a partial list, since there’ve been other votes since it was compiled—to repeal Obamacare. There haven’t been enough votes in the Senate to break a filibuster. There might be enough after 2016 or 2018, but then we’ll need a GOP president.
And you’re spewing hyperbolic nonsense. As usual.
Was the decision tailored narrowly? If so, how?
If the last ruling meant anything, Roberts was actually the original squish on this one — Kennedy was ready to throw the whole thing out back then.
The problem I have with all of these repeal votes is that they amount to nothing but theater. Its a sop to the base.
What I want to know is: what is the “Replace” portion of the vaunted “Repeal and Replace” pledge? I have seen nothing.
What’s the point in believing in the Constitution and the Rule of Law? This country as I once knew it is finished. It’s really over.
Well, having read the majority, I found it pretty reasonable. I can’t say what crazy rationale might have gotten thrown in otherwise, as I don’t really know case law and legal precedents. I’m just spitballing.
True, but this is an entirely different legal question. It could just be that Kennedy felt the substance of the previous argument was much stronger and that this argument was really a matter of technicality and not as strong a reason to undo the law. Again, who knows?
So says the left-libertarian who freaks out in every Sarah Palin thread.
Is this a parody account of what the left thinks conservatives are?
I could ask the same regarding what conservatives think of libertarians.
What is conservative about seeking to abolish a branch of government that is specifically empowered in the Constitution just because you don’t like a decision?
Yes, the decision is terrible. Yes it jeopardizes the concept of rule of law. Hell, it jeopardizes the meaning of ENGLISH. But insane calls for revolution or to abolish Constitutionally established institutions is not conservative. Its crazy.
Oh wait, I forgot, I’m a leftist.
What a joke you are.
@Jamie and @Mike: knock it off.
This thread is for discussing the ruling on the merits. If you’re incapable of interacting with each other in a civil fashion, please stop interacting with each other altogether.
It is a sad day for the U.S.A.
Apologies, but I’ve been called a leftist enough around here for it to get under my skin.
And with that name calling, how about we get back to substance?
Is abolition/revolution always crazy, or is it rational when government becomes destructive to the liberties it was established to protect? Are we to that point yet? Has the yoke of government become an unbearable burden? Are elections enough to solve the problem, or are they too weak a solution as Patrick Henry declared?
I, for one, am certainly not surprised by this decision. Of course, I am a lowly, uneducated hick living in rural Kansas, so what do I know? I will also be unsurprised when the Court Jesters rule SSM to be “the law of the land”. (Gruber admitted the states were being ‘carrot & sticked’, to force them to bend to the will of the ACA. But facts, videos all over the net, documents, etc., mean NOTHING to the Democrats who rammed this monstrosity down America’s throat.) 30,000,000 people had no insurance, either by choice or lack of money, so throw the ENTIRE country under the bus, hit the bus with a freight train, then detonate a nuclear bomb on the rubble, to force everyone to buy health insurance. Over 300,000,000 people being held hostage by 9 robed clowns (I include the 3 dissenters—how hard did they argue against the final decision?)—where is the justice in that?
Then the GOP is in a no win situation. If they vote to repeal Obamacare y’all dismiss it as a show-vote; if they didn’t y’all would say that proves they’re not doing anything.
Not if they have a plan in place and pass that plan along with a repeal vote. The problem is there has been no real plan presented to reform healthcare from legislators on the right (there are plenty out there in the think tanks).
None of this makes much of a difference as long as Obama is still president he will veto any legislation that passes.
Maybe one lesson is, don’t count on courts to do what the political branches cannot or will not do? I do not really have a good example of when SCOTUS won against a determined executive. SCOTUS eventually let FDR have his way… For those who do not feel like calling for civil war–GOP politics is the alternative. A president could undo what the current one has done-
Men do not beat drums before hunting tigers.
In Jamie’s defense (something you won’t see me write often) SSM, the undemocratic means by which it’s being shoved on us, and the accompanying threat to religious liberty looms large in conservatives’ feeling that we’re losing our republic. Jamie is all for SSM and considers religious liberty a side issue that can be dealt with separately, so of course he doesn’t see the situation as being as dire as Mike does.
This is a core problem. Reince Priebus assures us the R’s have plans, but I’m not really buying his shtick. However, in lieu of an actual plan, I’ll take simple abolition of the ACA over its continued destruction of liberty and private health insurance.
Tar. Feathers.
This is true….for conservatives. The left can apparently count on courts to do what political branches cannot or will not do all the time.
I hope you are right, that the law was ambiguous and that’s why the court took the easy way out. However, from everything I had heard, denying tax credits to the states was a feature, not a bug, to coerce the states to set up exchanges. Mr. Gruber testified to as much in his presentations. Unfortunately, I think what really happened is that the rule of law took a big hit today. The law is now apparently whatever those in power want it to be. One more speed bump on the route to third-world governance practices in this country.
Not actually true, but I’d rather address this point when the Court hands down its inevitable (and probably poor) decision on SSM.
I think both with the ACA and SSM we have examples of democracy failing and the courts salvaging a preferred outcome. This is very, very troubling, to say the least. Mike’s passion is warranted. Jamie’s caution is also appropriate considering the ramifications of either path. This is not a time to act irrationally, but neither is it a time to remain wholly passive in the face of eroding liberty.
To paraphrase Roberts, we can’t believe congress is this stupid, which, of course, contradicts his rationale in Sebelius where he wrote that it is not the court’s job to protect the electorate from stupid electors.
While this irritates me no end, to put it mildly, I wonder if this is as bad as some of the court rulings by SCOTUS during the FDR administration, or from the Warren court. The court has often jettisoned the “plain text of the law” argument as simplistic, or I think with the Warren court, naive.
So this is bad, but is it start-a-revolution bad? While it does seem terrible and permanent, what if the pendulum swings back in the next election cycle and the political will emerges to take on the more egregious parts of it? And is it beyond imagining that a generation of jurists will emerge that do value the rule of law the way we do? OtOH, we’ve been getting whupped pretty bad since the 1930s. But I’m going to keep my irritation from turning into inchoate and hopeless rage.
And BThompson, your take seems pretty likely to me. But still, Roberts is maddening.
Well, not quite–the elected & unelected branches work together for progress. It’s the way to go. Pass Obamacare–get it fixed in the Courts.
I see this less as a political issue e.g. any decision that upholds a liberal law is untenable and more as a systemic issue e.g. decisions that fly in the face of bedrock concepts like rule of law or erode ideas established in the Constitution are bad for society.
Calling for revolution or the abolition of Constitutionally established branches of government solves nothing. Its cathartic but doesn’t address a systemic issue in any realistic way.