Thread: Supreme Court Upholds Obama Health Care Subsidies[W:700]

Originally Posted by CanadaJohn

That's pretty funny, actually. The truth is the "Cons" have to stop relying on the courts NOT legislating from the bench. Justice Roberts has proven that he'd much rather be President than Chief Justice. He'd much rather create legislation than simply determine its constitutionality. His two rulings in relation to the ACA are a complete abandonment of his oath of office and "Cons" in the future would be well served not to rely on the Chief Justice's integrity because it doesn't exist.

Say what you will about his decisions, but he is a human being and he didn't want the legacy of his court to be the one that shot down Obamacare for millions of people. I think any Chief Justice would feel and rule the same way.

Originally Posted by pbrauer

Say what you will about his decisions, but he is a human being and he didn't want the legacy of his court to be the one that shot down Obamacare for millions of people. I think any Chief Justice would feel and rule the same way.

You're much more ideologically equipped to be the bleeding heart supporter of the poor, hard done by Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court. It is not the job of a Supreme Court Justice, and certainly not the job of the Chief Justice of the court, to play politics with the law. There are many issues that come before a court that are contentious and often that even a majority of the public support or oppose. Are you suggesting that the Supreme Court should rule via public opinion polling?

Chief Justice Roberts has been a disgrace, in my view, in that he has in effect practiced the equivalent of jury nullification. He has taken his position and substituted his own personal viewpoint on the validity of law for an actual interpretation of the law as written.

Originally Posted by OrphanSlug

Too many threads on this, but this is more or less my post for the other one...

The dissenting opinion is right, this decision is a gross misinterpretation of the actual ACA language. Some seven times in ACA is specifies subsidies and tax credits though "Exchange established by the State." The majority in this 6-3 decision just decided that the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and by extension, the Department of Health and Human Services equates to a State. The argument can now be made that by precedence on what is equal to a State. If a law references a State, the Federal government can now argue any relevant department is now capable of being involved in that definition.

But the problem is the ACA itself contemplated that states would not establish their own exchanges, and provided that in those cases the Feds would do so on their behalf. It's a stretch at best that the law intended for the Feds to establish exchanges that WOULD FAIL, and that didn't qualify for the central feature of the ACA which was subsidies for lower income individuals.

And it's more of a stretch that this feature - failure of the subsidy in states with Fed exchanges - was so well hidden that it took months and some eagle eyed citizen to catch. None of the states knew it when they decided whether or not to establish exchanges. If the Congress intended such a draconian result to attach to the decision to let the Feds operate the exchange, a plausible interpretation is that they would have clearly outlined such a result instead of hinging it on splitting hairs between "by a state" versus "by the Feds on behalf of the state". That they did not is strong evidence that the subsidy failure for those states was a drafting error and not an intended result. And when faced with the failure of a law based on a drafting error the SC is required to read the law and its intent as a whole and sustain the law.

Originally Posted by OrphanSlug

Too many threads on this, but this is more or less my post for the other one...

The dissenting opinion is right, this decision is a gross misinterpretation of the actual ACA language. Some seven times in ACA is specifies subsidies and tax credits though "Exchange established by the State." The majority in this 6-3 decision just decided that the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and by extension, the Department of Health and Human Services equates to a State. The argument can now be made that by precedence on what is equal to a State. If a law references a State, the Federal government can now argue any relevant department is now capable of being involved in that definition.

Everyone that was in congress that has spoken on the matter has insisted that the intent of the law was that subsidies would also apply to the federal exchange. That makes a huge difference between this and some instance where someone just wanted to change the definition of what a "state" is.

Originally Posted by JasperL

But the problem is the ACA itself contemplated that states would not establish their own exchanges, and provided that in those cases the Feds would do so on their behalf. It's a stretch at best that the law intended for the Feds to establish exchanges that WOULD FAIL, and that didn't qualify for the central feature of the ACA which was subsidies for lower income individuals.

Then the remedy is legislative change.

The ultimate point of the Supreme Court is to decide on the merit of a challenge based the case made vs. the wording of the law in question and that case made. It is not the purpose of the Supreme Court to determine what should happen when the government *thinks* something should have happened according to legislative plan, but did not for whatever reason.

ACA as written is very explicit in what tax credits and subsidies are to be applied to, and in seven separate parts of ACA it explicitly says "Exchange established by the State." What ACA does *not* say about tax credits and subsidies is an exchange established by the State or the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

The dissenting opinion is right, the Federal argument should have failed forcing Congressional remedy for the mistake made.

Originally Posted by JasperL

But it's the GOP with control of the House and Senate. It's their obligation to govern and fix the law if they see problems, not point fingers.

Didn't realize they had a veto proof majority.