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I think you're reading more into this than actually exists. The issue at hand is that the law explicitly provides for subsidies for people who enroll in state exchanges, but does not provide for subsidies for those who enroll under the Federal exchange.
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Regardless of the perceived "intent" of Democrats to push the costs onto the States, the underlying issue here is that there is no language in the law providing for subsidies for federal exchange participants.
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The Court's ruling is that Democrats and Congress were not able to sufficiently demonstrate their "intent" was to have States run their own exchange, even if the language on subsidies points that direction.
The bottom line is, Democrats failed big time on writing this legislation. Very rarely does major legislation make it through with such a major oversight. Like I said before, most legislation has some sort of semantical escape hatch built in to cover the ambiguities. And even with the semantical escape hatc, small errors are identified and corrected all the time, but this as a major, major omission on their part. And that's what the Court pointed to in its ruling.
As far as the ruling goes I completely agree with you. The court ruled that the intent was to provide subsidies for the state run exchanges only.
The problem is that Congress just figured all the states would just roll over and implement the law.
They couldn't make it mandatory, although they tried blackmail with the expanded medicaid but a judge fixed that one.
They danced along the lines of what was legal for them to mandate on states.
Now we see the aftermath due to states not rolling over quietly and implementing what the Fed said.
I suspect the courts will allow the subsidies in the end.
You can't give people "free money" and then take it away from them.
This was a proof reading error in the original law. Someone at some level should have caught it. The two judges are trying to undo the law based on a technicality. This actually puts the Republican states in a predicament like Arizona where they supported Medicaid expansion. Now the Republicans will be in the position of telling people on the exchanges "sorry you dont get any help."
This issue was brought up many times at congressional hearings and Sebelius & the rest of the administration ignored the questions and gave the impression that they were above the law and it didn't matter.
That illogic has already been tried. It is not intent, it is the word(s) of the law. And those words, "state exchanges occur in more than one section. Some drafting error.
Justice Roberts foretold this, as well as the Hobby Lobby decision, when he wrote the majority opinion on the penalty/tax individual mandate. WAPO said it best, when discussing the penalty/tax for not complying with the individual mandate ruling.
By ramming through the original law, in the dead of night in a shifty parliamentary maneuver Dems have made the bed in which they have been laying. Was it worth it Joe, to achieve a big f*0(king deal? Was it worth it Nancy to pass something to read it later? Roberts
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Roberts said in his opinion that he was not making a judgment about the wisdom of the policy; he said only that it was constitutionally permissible. He has thrown the debate over health care back into the political arena for adjudication in November and perhaps beyond.
Bibically speaking, a house built on sand will not stand.
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Originally Posted by borregokid
This was a proof reading error in the original law. Someone at some level should have caught it. The two judges are trying to undo the law based on a technicality. This actually puts the Republican states in a predicament like Arizona where they supported Medicaid expansion. Now the Republicans will be in the position of telling people on the exchanges "sorry you dont get any help."
What you got was subsidized insurance with high deductibles and out of pocket costs.
Exactly what the insurance companies wanted. With all the subsidies pouring into their coffers it was the perfect scheme to move a massive amount of wealth from the populous to themselves; and btw, they were the architects of ACA in the first place.
Americans have become willing marks to the cronies on the hill.
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Originally Posted by borregokid
This was a proof reading error in the original law. Someone at some level should have caught it. The two judges are trying to undo the law based on a technicality. This actually puts the Republican states in a predicament like Arizona where they supported Medicaid expansion. Now the Republicans will be in the position of telling people on the exchanges "sorry you dont get any help."
You're cutting and pasting what Think Progress publishes as if it's the gospel; C'mon man!
As far as the ruling goes I completely agree with you. The court ruled that the intent was to provide subsidies for the state run exchanges only.
Then we can discuss why they did that.
I agree that Democrats sought to push the cost onto the States. Obviously their intent backfired.
Many times, Congressional intent is demonstrated through rulemaking, which is an Executive Branch function. The Executive Branch has had since the 2012 Obamacare-is-legal Supreme Court ruling to demonstrate its intent through the rulemaking process. So, what we have here is a colossal failure on two fronts.....the enabling legislation didn't speak to federal exchange subsidies.....and Dept. of Health and Human Services failed to recognize the flaw and enact rules to correct the flaw. The Administration is incompetent, at best, and the Court had really no other option but to call them out for their incompetence.
No doubt this rule stings the White House quite hard.....especially since it likely could have been corrected through a rulemaking expressing HHS's interpretation of Congressional intent (which happens all the time.) Now that the Court has ruled, there's no opportunity for a rulemaking to correct this.
Nah, you can be sure that whatever Justice Roberts was blackmailed with last time around will be dredged back up for this round as well.
I'm figuring Roberts gave them one vote and the ACA mandate was it. Just a guess.
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