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.”