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Federal Court rules Most obamacare subsidies Illegal[W:286]

JasperL said:
The problem is there is no evidence any state recognized that failing to set up their own exchange would cause this 'pain' that none of their residents would qualify for subsidies.
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Nonsense. I remember this being discussed in 2010.
 
sangha said:
It's not an argument; It's a fact

Only the intent of Congress matters



Wrong. The law says when there's any ambiguity, the IRS can interpret the law. Your belief that there is a way to render a "strict interpretation" is contradicted by the fact that even you admit that there's ambiguity
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Judges disagree with you.
 
ludin said:
it doesn't matter what the states realizes or not. that is why they have people in the house and the senate to read through and make sure taht the bill that are generated are in their best interest.

their house reps and senators failed to read the bill as they wrote it.
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So, you're back to jt's circular reasoning - the bill reflects the intent of the authors. How do we know that was their intent and not a drafting error? Because that's what's in the bill!
 
j-mac said:
I'm not here to change your mind. Some causes are just lost.
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Well, citing your memory as evidence certainly won't do it. My state didn't set up an exchange, and I remember no one who gave a crap other than bureaucrats because I recall no mention/suggestion/statement of fact that whether we set one up determined whether our residents qualified for credits.
 
buck said:
A court ruled against the subsidies. The decision was stayed during appeal.
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Which means it doesn't have the force of law. I was right and you are wrong



Yes, you are one to speak of comprehension issues.

As quoted "and even less chance of being addressed by the courts anytime in the near future because of jurisdictional problems"... As the case is addressed soon after. Oops.
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A "small chance" does not mean "no chance"

Try reading it again
 
JasperL said:
So, you're back to jt's circular reasoning - the bill reflects the intent of the authors. How do we know that was their intent and not a drafting error? Because that's what's in the bill!
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The law is clear on contracts. Not reading a contract is not an excuse to get out of a contract if there is something in it you don't like.
you should have read the contract before you signed it.

there is no circular logic. If the court allows this to happen and the subsidies to continue then they pretty much violate every contract law established out there.
You don't get to say well intended something else but wrote this instead.

it means that contracts and law are subjective depending on how you want to read it. which is not the case.

if you come to me with a job and you say you will do it for 20k dollars and later you find out that you need 30k you can't change the contract.

they signed a bill that says only states established exchanges can received government subsidies. they thought it would push states to create their own exchanges if that was a negative consquence for not doing so.

they didn't realize the number of states that wouldn't do it. the only way they can change the bill now is an amendment.

that won't pass through congress and obama can't sign an executive order either. that would be changing the law which he doesn't have the power to do.

they put themselves in this position by passing a bill they didn't read. the DC court got it correct.

the subsidies clause does not mention anything about the federal exchanges.
 
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sangha said:
Wrong

At trial, the judges agreed that they are legal
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They agreed 2 to 1 they are not. They simply stayed the decission.

A "small chance" does not mean "no chance"
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If you read the whole quote, you will see he is stating it is less then little chance. So, what's less then little chance? Regardless. It didn't have "a less then a little chance" of being adressed in a timely manner, because it was addressed in a timely manner. It even succeeded in the court, which according to him it had little chance of doing. Oops.

You're wrong, but I expect you'll continue with the silliness, so enjoy it on your own.

A divided three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the text of the Affordable Care Act restricts the provision of premium tax credits to state-run exchanges. The two Republican appointees on the panel ruled against Obamacare while the one Democratic appointee ruled for the law.
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"We reach this conclusion, frankly, with reluctance," Griffith wrote for the court. "At least until states that wish to can set up Exchanges, our ruling will likely have significant consequences both for the millions of individuals receiving tax credits through federal Exchanges and for health insurance markets more broadly. But, high as those stakes are, the principle of legislative supremacy that guides us is higher still."
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buck said:
They agreed 2 to 1 they are not. They simply stayed the decission.



If you read the whole quote, you will see he is stating it is less then little chance. So, what's less then little chance? Regardless. It didn't have "a less then a little chance" of being adressed in a timely manner, because it was addressed in a timely manner. It even succeeded in the court, which according to him it had little chance of doing. Oops.

You're wrong, but I expect you'll continue with the silliness, so enjoy it on your own.
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your wasting your time. it doesn't matter how many time you point out that he is not correct he will just repeat the same wrong answer. it is why he is on ignore and i don't see anything he posts.

the DC court ruled that they were illegal. they stayed the decision pending an appeal if there is no appeal then the decision stands and all the states that are affected by the DC court would lose their subsidies.

this will go to the SCOTUS because we have a conflict in rulings. if it does go it should be a simple and easy 9-0 in favor of the plantiff in this case. however given the courts putting their political agenda above the law it will more than likely be a 5-4 split on way or the other.
 
JasperL said:
Well, citing your memory as evidence certainly won't do it. My state didn't set up an exchange, and I remember no one who gave a crap other than bureaucrats because I recall no mention/suggestion/statement of fact that whether we set one up determined whether our residents qualified for credits.
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I realize it's a biased source, but it makes the point pretty well that it is plausible... Especially when taking into account the medicaid expansion stick pointed at in the article and Gruber's statements regarding it.

Obamacare Was Designed to Punish Uncooperative States | The American Spectator

Keeping the history of the law’s Medicaid provisions in mind, consider again whether it is indeed “plausible” that someone in the Senate—or maybe even an influential lobbyist or academic helping to draft the bill—intended with these four words to dangle similar carrots to induce unwilling states to establish health insurance exchanges. Perhaps some states would have initially declined to build exchanges, and in those cases HHS had the authority to operate a federal exchange as a backup. Could red-state governors have long handled the backlash from their citizens being punished with unaffordable insurance premiums? Maybe. Maybe not.

But such an incentive structure is at least consistent with the thinking behind other provisions of Obamacare: that states can be made to swallow bitter pills.
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ludin said:
your wasting your time. it doesn't matter how many time you point out that he is not correct he will just repeat the same wrong answer. it is why he is on ignore and i don't see anything he posts.

the DC court ruled that they were illegal. they stayed the decision pending an appeal if there is no appeal then the decision stands and all the states that are affected by the DC court would lose their subsidies.

this will go to the SCOTUS because we have a conflict in rulings. if it does go it should be a simple and easy 9-0 in favor of the plantiff in this case. however given the courts putting their political agenda above the law it will more than likely be a 5-4 split on way or the other.
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I agree.. and I really should do the same... little is offered.
 
buck said:
I realize it's a biased source, but it makes the point pretty well that it is plausible... Especially when taking into account the medicaid expansion stick pointed at in the article and Gruber's statements regarding it.

Obamacare Was Designed to Punish Uncooperative States | The American Spectator
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The problem is if both interpretations are plausible, and that is what the 4th Circuit decided, the Court is required to defer to regulators, in this case IRS. It's very disappointing that the American Spectator didn't point this out - if the author read the 4th Circuit ruling, and he must have because he quotes from it, this is in fact how the case was decided.

It didn't matter at all to the 4th Circuit which of the two sides had the better argument - all the court needed to find was that the IRS' interpretation was a plausible reflection of Congress' intent. And it is certainly plausible that supporters of ACA did NOT intend to provide the means for recalcitrant states to destroy the entire ACA in the ACA. This is especially evident because the ACA provides that if the states don't establish an exchange, the Feds WILL do that on their behalf. Taken literally, the position of those suing to overturn the credits must believe that the supporters of ACA intended to provide for a mechanism to set up exchanges that in fact had no eligible customers.

http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/King-v.-Burwell.pdf
 
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JasperL said:
The problem is if both interpretations are plausible, and that is what the 4th Circuit decided, the Court is required to defer to regulators, in this case IRS. It's very disappointing that the American Spectator didn't point this out - if the author read the 4th Circuit ruling, and he must have because he quotes from it, this is in fact how the case was decided.

It didn't matter at all to the 4th Circuit which of the two sides had the better argument - all the court needed to find was that the IRS' interpretation was a plausible reflection of Congress' intent. And it is certainly plausible that supporters of ACA did NOT intend to provide the means for recalcitrant states to destroy the entire ACA in the ACA. This is especially evident because the ACA provides that if the states don't establish an exchange, the Feds WILL do that on their behalf. Taken literally, the position of those suing to overturn the credits must believe that the supporters of ACA intended to provide for a mechanism to set up exchanges that in fact had no eligible customers.

http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/King-v.-Burwell.pdf
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The court is required to defer to regulators over what the law states? That seems unlikely. But, as quoted previously in this thread:

King v. Burwell decision. In King v. Burwell, Judge Gregory writing for the unanimous court admitted that the court found the “applicable statutory language is ambiguous and subject to multiple interpretations.” In order to reach a decision, the court deferred to “the IRS’s determination” and upheld “the rule as a permissible exercise of the agency’s discretion. The IRS Rule provides that the credits shall be available to anyone ‘enrolled in one or more qualified health plans through an Exchange,’ and then adopts by cross-reference an HHS [Health and Human Services] definition of ‘Exchange’ that includes any Exchange, ‘regardless of whether the Exchange is established and operated by a State . . . or by HHS.’” There are two things to note about this ruling: (1) this definition is not part of the Act but a rule written by IRS. (2) IRS had been worried about the lack of reference to the federal exchanges throughout the ACT and specifically requested HHS to provide them cover by creating this definition.
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buck said:
They agreed 2 to 1 they are not. They simply stayed the decission.
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The only ruling with the force of law says that they are legal


If you read the whole quote, you will see he is stating it is less then little chance. So, what's less then little chance? Regardless. It didn't have "a less then a little chance" of being adressed in a timely manner, because it was addressed in a timely manner. It even succeeded in the court, which according to him it had little chance of doing. Oops.
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less than little chance <> no chance

Read it again.
 
buck said:
The court is required to defer to regulators over what the law states? That seems unlikely.
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No, you quoted an article that said the position of the plaintiffs - those suing to invalidate the IRS regulation allowing credits to federally run exchanges - was "plausible." That's clearly true. But "plausible" isn't definitive. If the plaintiffs' position was merely plausible, then the alternative (36B allows for credits on all exchanges) is also plausible. And when confronted with two plausible interpretations, the Court MUST defer to regulators' interpretation.

And the part about HHS just moves the same question over to HHS. Was the interpretation by HHS that Congress intended, and a reading of the ACA as a whole indicated, that a qualified exchange included both state and federally assisted exchanges? If that position is merely plausible, then the Court has to side with HHS. So the court, to side with plaintiffs, has to find that the government's position was NOT EVEN PLAUSIBLE.
 
Gruber said it on 2 different occasions.
The guy must be prone to error.
 
buck said:
The court is required to defer to regulators over what the law states? That seems unlikely. But, as quoted previously in this thread:
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It's called "The Chevron doctrine"

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/467/837/case.html

When a court reviews an agency's construction of the statute which it administers, it is confronted with two questions. First, always, is the question whether Congress has directly spoken to the precise question at issue. If the intent of Congress is clear, that is the end of the matter; for the court,

Page 467 U. S. 843

as well as the agency, must give effect to the unambiguously expressed intent of Congress. [Footnote 9] If, however, the court determines Congress has not directly addressed the precise question at issue, the court does not simply impose its own construction on the statute, [Footnote 10] as would be necessary in the absence of an administrative interpretation. Rather, if the statute is silent or ambiguous with respect to the specific issue, the question for the court is whether the agency's answer is based on a permissible construction of the statute. [Footnote 11]

"The power of an administrative agency to administer a congressionally created . . . program necessarily requires the formulation of policy and the making of rules to fill any gap left, implicitly or explicitly, by Congress."

Morton v. Ruiz,415 U. S. 199, 415 U. S. 231 (1974). If Congress has explicitly left a gap for the agency to fill, there is an express delegation

Page 467 U. S. 844

of authority to the agency to elucidate a specific provision of the statute by regulation. Such legislative regulations are given controlling weight unless they are arbitrary, capricious, or manifestly contrary to the statute. [Footnote 12] Sometimes the legislative delegation to an agency on a particular question is implicit, rather than explicit. In such a case, a court may not substitute its own construction of a statutory provision for a reasonable interpretation made by the administrator of an agency. [Footnote 13]

We have long recognized that considerable weight should be accorded to an executive department's construction of a statutory scheme it is entrusted to administer, [Footnote 14] and the principle of deference to administrative interpretations

"has been consistently followed by this Court whenever decision as to the meaning or reach of a statute has involved reconciling conflicting policies, and a full understanding of the force of the statutory policy in the given situation has depended upon more than ordinary knowledge respecting the matters subjected to agency regulations. See, e.g., National Broadcasting Co. v. United States,319 U. S. 190; Labor Board v. Hearst Publications, Inc.,322 U. S. 111; Republic Aviation Corp. v.
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sangha said:
The only ruling with the force of law says that they are legal
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At least now you admit another court made a ruling that they are not legal. You are makign progress.
 
buck said:
At least now you admit another court made a ruling that they are not legal. You are makign progress.
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It does not have the force of law. The ruling saying it is legal does have the force of law.
 
sangha said:
It does not have the force of law. The ruling saying it is legal does have the force of law.
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As you continue showing you have made progress. Yay!
 
buck said:
Yes, and you are more than happy to believe him despite him making the same "mistake" twice in two different speaches. We get it.
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You called him a liar, but you believe him when it he says something you like.

You criticize policies you actually support, and you believe people you actually don't believe

buck said:
As you continue showing you have made progress. Yay!
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I doubt you will even admit that your ruling does not have any force of law
 
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