Greg Sargent To SCOTUS: Ignore The US Constitution (Guest Post)

What do you expect from a leftist? Truth and principle are worthless. All that matters to the leftist is forcing their insane dystopia upon the rest of us, facts, truth, honor, common sense be damned.

Note how yet again the left totally ignores the conundrum of how something they claim is “affordable” requires over 80% of participants forced into compliance to have >70-75% of the monthly premium be subsidized by taxpayers.

Nothing about obamacare is good, nor worth saving. Get the government out of the healthcare business. Get the government out of the price control business, and pass an amendment that prohibits all members of government from being exempted from the laws they pass/force upon the rest of us.

Republicans had better be careful what they wish for. They might get it. In the run-up to the 2016 elections, they could suddenly be confronted with a choice between either quickly passing legislation to correct the flaw in the ACA that results in unequal treatment under the law for federal vs. state enrollees, or doing nothing at all and allowing it all to fall apart.

What, exactly, are Congressional-majority republicans imagining they would have to deal with if the Affordable Care Act suddenly fell apart? The public, the health insurance industry, the healthcare industry, and businesses all across America have had 5 years to gradually become familiar with and adjust to ACA provisions. Ten million Americans would be without insurance coverage without it. Are republicans totally clueless about the level of chaos that would follow, if all of that changed overnight? Does anyone imagine they’d be capable of quickly putting together an acceptable replacement?

The legality of federal subsidies has yet to be finally determined. Two federal appeals courts have come to different decisions, one determining them to be legal and the other determining them not to be. It will be up to the Supreme Court to decide.

I don’t know specifically what issue of constitutionality is being argued here. What the Supreme Court will be examining is an assertion that federal subsidies are illegal which is based entirely on an imprecision in the wording of a bill. The problem with this position is that the intention of the writers is entirely clear. I rather think the Supreme Court will side with the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on that point and allow their determination to stand. To conclude that the legislation was actually meant to treat state and federal enrollees unequally simply makes no sense. That sort of unequal treatment under the law likely would be found to be unconstitutional.

I guess we’ll find out who’s correct sometime midway through the year.

@Greg:

one determining them to be legal and the other determining them not to be.

one of Dimocrats, one of Repubs. Can we get some Americans that believe in the constitution to rule?

The problem with this position is that the intention of the writers is entirely clear.

LOL, yep it sure is. It clearly says that the government will subsidize you if the state has set up and maintains the market for their state, but since the Federal govt will have all expenses if they have to do it, that they won’t pay the subsidies. Extremely clear, you do it through Fed, you don’t get it.

@Greg:

themselves having full responsibility for remedying the chaos that follows.

Well, gee Greg, If you like your plan, you can keep it, if you like your Doctor you can keep him. See how simple that would be.

@Marine72, #11:

Why would language that could put the entire body of your legislation in jeopardy have been done on purpose?

@Redteam, #13:

It was done so there was no ambiguity, the states would have to do it for buy in, if they didn’t, no subsidy..

So, the “unambiguous” language was intended to compel states to set up their own exchanges in order to avoid having their poorest residents punished with the financial burden of non-subsidized premiums? And 36 states knowingly decided to let that to happen? Even though the negative consequences of uninsured residents are felt locally, rather than off in Washington DC?

Additionally, if the ACA was the federal power grab people on the right constantly assert, why would it have been designed to make the federal exchange less attractive than state-level exchanges?

To me, the argument that the wording was intentional simply makes no sense.

Greg, your interpretation that the wording being intentional makes no sense only holds water if you truly believe the ACA is an end unto itself. If, conversely, you understand the ACA as the camel’s nose under the tent in the pursuit of “single-payer” medical insurance, it suddenly makes all the sense in the world.

@Me, #16:

If ambiguous wording was part of a backdoor strategy to assure failure of the ACA so that a single-payer solution could be put forward, I have a hard time understanding why republicans would be so enthusiastic about making certain that such a failure occurs. It’s not as if they’re ready to roll out an alternative that most Americans are going to like.

@Randy, #19:

An important part of the last sentence in #18 was that most Americans are going to like.

I think they’ll probably spin out a lot of similar bills, knowing that that they’ll all be protected from being harshly tested on that point by Obama’s veto pen. Then they’ll claim in 2016 that they would have solved many problems and done many great things with their Congressional majorities, if only a democrat in the White House hadn’t blocked them.

This is their only viable strategy for 2016 that doesn’t actually involve doing something that they could be judged on by their own opposing factions. It allows them to continue to conceal their own deep dysfunctions from their base. It also guarantees that they’ll do nothing useful for the next two years.

One thing obama has done, is make the communists comfortable enough to come out of the closet.

“You will find a lot who believe that the playing field has become increasingly tilted to the advantage of those who already have great wealth and power, however.”

And the Far Left’s timeless solution is to consolidate even MORE wealth and power in the hands of these select few central planners. (Amazing how things only seem to keep getting worse…)

@Disturber, #25:

Greg. Greg, I had thought that you were a much better lawyer based upon your arguments on other matters, but you are not cutting it here.

I’m not a lawyer at all. I am, however, aware of the fact that administrative agencies are delegated the authority to interpret the intention of laws and statutes to the best of their ability when they write the regulations and procedural guidelines that delineate how such laws are applied in the real world. I’m also aware that a single sentence cannot be taken totally out of context and used to override or negate the clear intentions expressed in the rest of a bill when making such an interpretation—particularly when the result of doing so would be to create a situation where unequal treatment under the law exists.

There’s simply no way that such an argument will withstand close scrutiny in the highest court in the land. I can see the flaws in it as a layman. Pushing it all the way up to the Supreme Court is probably more of a political exercise than anything else. If I’m wrong about the outcome, it will be interesting to see how republicans fare with getting what they claim they want. The entire resulting disaster–the creation of yet another sort of vacuum—would be their problem to deal with. It could prove wonderfully illustrative of what happens when a totally dysfunctional political party is given a really big problem to fix with an election year bearing down on them. The squawking and running for cover probably wouldn’t leave a favorable impression with voters who suddenly realize just how much damage republicans have finally done.

@Greg, ” I’m also aware that a single sentence cannot be taken totally out of context and used to override or negate the clear intentions expressed in the rest of a bill”

Have you read the rest of the bill? I have, and there is nothing in the “rest of the bill” that either supports or detracts from the issue at hand. If you can find some language in the bill that supports your position, quote it here with the citation. It is the narrative that drives your position, not the facts and facts have a stubborn way of getting out in front of the narrative. Gruber wrote the provision. He has stated publicly what the provision was supposed to mean. He has stated it repeatedly. He has stated that the Administration deliberately mislead the public so as to get the bill passed. Those are facts. In the meanwhile, the narrative was that there were 30 to 40 million uninsured yet less than 10 million have signed up. We were told that there were millions with preexisting conditions that prevented them from obtaining insurance (even though there was an existing program to solve that problem), yet the number that are participating in the program is slightly more than 100,000. There were many other lies that we were told, but you know all of that and it doesn’t matter to you because in your mind, only the narrative matters. As Chuck the Schmuck Schumer said, “blowing up the entire healthcare system for a mere 7 million votes was a mistake.” I don’t have the exact quote, but that is close enough.

The last election was a wave election by anyone’s definition. Americans rejected the progressive agenda overwhelmingly, handing the Senate to the Republicans and almost 2/3rds of the statehouses. Meanwhile, 2016 is coming up and what have the Democrats to offer. Hillary, who is over the hill and is a despicable liar who has shown absolutely no ability to administer anything – look at our foreign policy which is shambles. And, Elizabeth Warren who has had no administrative experience, and has a record that when it comes to light – as it will – that is not going to be very exciting to normal Americans. Of course there is Joe Biden, the poster boy for foot-in-mouth disease. There is another wave coming and it will match or exceed the McGovern election – that is, unless Hillary can ride around in a tank looking presidential!

As for big issues and Republicans, I seem to recall that the Civil Rights Legislation was pushed and ultimately passed by Republicans over the implacable resistance of the Democrats in Congress. The Medicare Drug benefit which is the only such program that is in the black is another example. There was a time when practical legislating brought the sides together. Those days seem to be gone and instead of dealing with the business of the Senate, we find Harry Reid, drunk as always, babbling in the well about the Koch brothers while the business of the American people languishes in his deranged ideologies.

Greg@ You confirm that it is the narrative and not the facts that matter. Whatever the purpose of any legislation, what is not expressed in the language of the law is not the law. The legislative purpose is not some evanescent presence that hovers above the actual language shepherding interpretations and understandings into vague crevices in which the ideologues wish to dwell. The inquiry is not what “I” wish the law to say, it is what the law says. The Democrats had absolute control over the statutory language. If the intention of the provision in question was to do what you say, it would have been a very easy task to say it directly and unambiguously. However, the SCOTUS had ruled many times that the Federal Government could not compel the states to do various things and it was a matter of reading those cases to conclude that the states could not be compelled to enact health exchanges by Federal legislation. Accordingly, as Gruber the Grub has confirmed over and over, the device used was to hold out an incentive of subsidies for three years if the states would build those exchanges. Thus, the statutory language encompasses a specific “tactic” adopted to “reward” states that build exchanges. As Gruber the Grub has said, “If they build the exchanges, they get the subsidy. If they don’t, they forgo the subsidy.”
But Gruber’s intelligence over leaped itself and fell within, for his certainty of 50 (or is it 57) states marching in lock step didn’t materialize for reasons that this medical expert should have foreseen.

In most states, the cost of Medicaid is one of or the largest budgetary items and one of the most difficult to manage. Many states were wary of participating in still another open ended program which, after three years, would be hugely expensive and would bust many state’s budgets. Besides, virtually all states had programs that provided medical services to the uninsured and so, in the minds of those state governments, provision of medical services and not availability of insurance was the burning question. ( In fact, that is the fundamental flaw in Obamacare.)

At the Federal level, the drafters of the legislation and particularly Gruber the Grub believed that no subsidies would be necessary as the only participants were likely to be Federal employees and they were already covered. Accordingly, no provision for subsidies on the Federal exchange can be found in the language of the bill. You see, Gruber the Grub couldn’t fathom that any states would forego the proffered subsidies and so, he believed, (as he has said repeatedly) that he anticipated that all states would take the bait. But he was blinded by his ideology and by his religious belief in the narrative that giving away goodies to favored groups at the expense of taxpayers is the only meaningful and effective solution. Reality and the narrative have clashed and reality has prevailed. The states cannot run deficits. Detroit anyone??

There was no legislative intention in Obamacare. Congress did not make a deliberative effort to craft an understandable piece of legislation. Pelosi and Reid couldn’t take that risk. Instead, they rammed it through, unread by anyone except the draftpersons, in the middle of the night, using a procedural gimmick that had never been used to pass legislation of this magnitude. As a result, they got a dysfunctional bill, full of problems, full if inefficiencies, and ineffective in its objectives for the most part.

One has to wonder what might have emerged if instead of using the throat ramming technique, the provisions had seen the light of day, the bill had been processed through the committee process in the normal fashion, public support obtained not by deliberately misrepresenting the bill’s contents and effects, but by considering public opinion fairly and openly, and making the compromises necessary to obtain bi-partisan support. That is the hard work of legislating, but Pelosi and Reid have become rich without any meaningful effort and being so enamored with their power, they lacked the decency or the energy to do it right. The current mess is the result. They are despicable human beings.

Elections are won by those that vote. The Democrats spent more than a billion getting out the vote, even more than the Republicans. Somehow, their minions just didn’t feel it was important enough to fall into line. George Orwell warned us of your attitudes Greg.

@Greg:

It was the lowest voter turnout in 72 years.

seems as if you’re saying the Dimocrats were not thrilled to support those in office.
Basically the law says: If you can not afford the insurance and you sign up through your state exchange, your premiums will be subsidized by the Federal government. If you do not sign up through the state exchange, but through a Federal exchange, your premiums will not be subsidized by the Federal government.

I am so dumb, I can’t figure out what that means, could you interpret it for me, Greg?

Boy!
Talk about ObamaCare being ”coverage, not care,” almost 1/2 of all hospitals are being fined ”penalized” for the fact that too many sick patients are having to be re-admitted after being discharged.
One hospital, in Colorado is being fined $360,000 just for last year’s readmissions.
The portion of ObamaCare covering this aspect of ”coverage, not care,” is being renamed the “Go Home and Die Already,” section.