SCOTUS Saves ObamaCare Again

So, once again, it’s up to the voters to get rid of this legislative atrocity.

[Late-morning update]

Wow. By amazing coincidence, they released this ruling that words mean whatever they want them to mean on George Orwell’s birthday.

[Afternoon update]

No matter how King v. Burwell was decided, this was always going to come down to 2016:

Supporters of the law have already telegraphed that their next move is to end the political debate by urging a Pax Obamacare to which all Americans must acquiesce. Last week the president said, after “five years in, what we are talking about it is no longer just a law. It’s no longer just a theory. This isn’t even just about the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare . . . This is now part of the fabric of how we care for one another.”

While the ACA is certainly the “law of the land,” as it has been since its enactment, nothing in the Court’s decision today imparts any additional legitimacy on this law as a public policy meriting political acquiescence. To borrow from the president’s words, it is still “just a law.” So nothing in this decision should deter Republican presidential and congressional candidates in the 2016 election from continuing to press their campaign to “repeal and replace” Obamacare.

Politically, it’s actually probably better for Republicans and those others of us who want to repeal it, but it’s a terrible terrible precedent, legally.

[Update a few minutes later]

Roberts rewrites the PPACA to save it (again).

[Mid-afternoon update]

Sorry, Obama, but it’s still not a done deal:

Obamacare has only enrolled about 40% of the subsidy eligible market in two years worth of open enrollments. That level of consumer support does not make Obamacare either financially sustainable or politically sustainable. The surveys say the 40% who have enrolled like their plans. Of course they do, they are the poorest with the biggest subsidies and the lowest deductibles. The working and middle-class have most often not signed up for Obamacare because it costs too much and delivers too little.

That Obamacare is not financially sustainable is evidenced by the first wave of big 2016 rate increases by so many large market share insurers. The next wave of rate increases a year from now will also be large and will be in the middle of the 2016 election.

These rate increases will further undermine the political sustainability of the law that has been reflected in five years of polling.

On to the election.

[Later-afternoon update]

“Let us recall why the Affordable Care Act is so messed up.”

16 thoughts on “SCOTUS Saves ObamaCare Again”

  1. The Supreme Court looked at the legislation as written and punted. Instead, they applied the new legal principle called the Pryor Dictum (after Richard Pryor) and asked, “Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?”

    Like “equal justice under the law”, the line “we are a nation of laws, not of men” is a pretty lie that government likes to tell us. It is and always has been BS, only now they’re admitting it.

    Nation of laws, my ass.

    1. The decision is a treasure trove for lawyers to challenge the ambiguity of all sorts of statements. Words get to mean whatever you want. Yeah!

    2. “The Supreme Court looked at the legislation as written and punted.”

      They didn’t punt though. :*(

  2. Whew, glad to know the transfer payments from taxpayers to insurance companies will continue. Enjoy your high premiums and high deductibles! I’ve already convinced my doctors that my cash works just as good as insurance, and they agree so much that they make my wait time equal to the time it takes for them to be compensated for their time. But hey, Jim tells us Obamacare provides 2 week wait times, which is just good enough to eat all the vacation time the labor unions provided to you, assuming you are poor because of that liberal arts degree and not because you don’t have a job. Now go party for that Supreme Court win!

    1. “But hey, Jim tells us Obamacare provides 2 week wait times”

      Obamacare defenders have started using examples of how the old system operated as evidence of how cool Obamacare is. The implication is always that the old system was worse despite whatever they are using as evidence for how awesome Obamacare is, pre-existed Obamacare.

  3. Twice now, the court has twisted itself into a pretzel to save this invalid law. People who view the courts as a check on the other branches are living in a different century. The slow, long, inexorable coup against constitutional government continues unabated, while we sit and watch.

  4. The next time you find yourself on the wrong side of the law due to a technical mistake or misunderstanding just claim that you meant to do the right thing and reference today’s SCOTUS decision.

    1. Lawyers and judges have the gall to say that “ignorance of the law is no excuse*.” It’s BS and has been for a long time. There are thousands of laws at the federal level alone. I seriously doubt any lawyer or judge knows all of them. Throw in the countless state and local laws and the situation is even worse. However, as of today’s decision, you can’t even read the law and know what it means. The SC ruled that the text of the law doesn’t matter, just what they decide it means. In short, there is no law.

      *I think the real reason they say that is they want us to hire a lawyer before making any decision. It’s part of the “Lawyer Full Employment Plan”.

  5. To use the terminology of the late great Leonard Read: another victory for the Command Society over the Free Society. Thus we proceed down the Road to Serfdom, with Big Brother’s useful idiots (Baghdad Jim, Sidetrack Bob, Admiral Gerrib, et al) dancing and singing along the way–never realizing that they will eventually end up in Big Brother’s meat-grinder, too.

  6. It was a silly case that the court shouldn’t have even bothered to hear. If you don’t like a law, gather the legislative votes to repeal it. Trying to torpedo a law by getting your political allies on the court to rewrite it into a new, unworkable form was perverse and un-democratic (with a small “d”).

    That sound you hear is the GOP leadership and presidential candidates issuing sighs of relief. Now they don’t have to commit to a plan to actually do something about Obamacare, and they can just go back to making it the object of their two-minute hates.

    1. Trying to torpedo a law by getting your political allies on the court to rewrite it into a new, unworkable form was perverse and un-democratic (with a small “d”).

      It was the IRS that was rewriting the law.

      1. Nobody who wanted the law favored (or, in most cases, had even imagined) the plaintiff’s interpretation. In his 2012 dissent even Scalia endorsed the IRS interpretation. The only people who wanted the plaintiff’s interpretation were people who were against the law from the beginning and wanted it to fail.

        Our system of government rests on the idea that the people’s representatives — the people who won elections — pass laws. If you let the people who lost those elections dictate the meaning of those laws, such that they will fail, you’ve completely subverted the notion of government of and by the people.

    2. You mean like torpedo a law like DOMA? Or changing gun laws, EPA regulations, fomenting race wars, pushing through FCC rules that regulate the internet?

      No, those don’t torpedo existing laws at all.

      1. You mean like torpedo a law like DOMA?

        Imagine if Democrats had asked the court to rule that the framers of DOMA had, in their attempt to ban federal recognition of gay marriage, accidentally written a law that forces the federal government to recognize gay marriage. Can you imagine how laughable that would have been?

        That, in a nutshell, is what the plaintiffs did in King vs. Burwell. The amazing and depressing thing is that they got any votes at all.

    3. And change immigration laws. Hey! I’ve got a pen and a phone and I’ll use them. I’ll circumvent the law any time I want, me and my Communist Senior Advisor, Valerie!

Comments are closed.