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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Obamacare ruling is an even bigger victory for the law—and the president—than anybody expected
By Mark Joseph Stern
Everybody,
To my mind, the most astonishing aspect of Chief Justice John Roberts opinion in King v. Burwell is that it actually puts Obamacares opponents in a worse position than they were in before the lawsuit. Pre-King, the IRS had simply promulgated a rule that subsidies must be available to people in every state, regardless of the presence of an exchange. The Obama administration argued that, if the court found the text ambiguous, it should defer to the IRS and allow its rule to go forward. (This is the so-called Chevron deference.) Under that logic, a future administration could revoke the subsidies in states with no exchange just as easily as the Obama administration made the subsidies universally available.
But on Thursday, Roberts held that the Chevron deference doesnt apply. The subsidy question, he explains, is one of deep economic and political significance that cuts to the core of the law. Thus, [t]his is not a case for the IRS. It is instead our task to determine the correct reading of the disputed section. Roberts then writes that Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them, so the court must hold that the correct reading of the law required subsidies to be made available in all 50 states.
This is a breathtaking holdingand an absolutely devastating defeat for the conservatives who brought this challenge to Obamacare. What might have been an ambiguous portion of the textand an opportunity for a future president to wreck the lawhas now been made unambiguous by the court.
No wonder, then, that Justice Antonin Scalia was hopping mad, writing in his dissent that the majoritys logic is [p]ure applesauce and interpretive jiggery-pokery. The court didnt just save Obamacare from this challenge; it also saved it from potential future sabotage. The courts hardcore conservatives may be furiousbut the president has a lot of celebrating to do.
more
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_breakfast_table/features/2015/scotus_roundup/supreme_court_2015_the_obamacare_ruling_is_a_bigger_victory_than_anyone.html
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)The ultimate irony, Scalia!
Can't wait until his court legalizes same-sex marriage everywhere!
He could always resign, couldn't he?
mmonk
(52,589 posts)rock
(13,218 posts)The human race that is.
shenmue
(38,506 posts)Spazito
(50,453 posts)The ruling has enshrined what might have been reversed by a future President had the challenge not going forward.
Republicans hoisted on their own petard X 10, LOVE it!
Thanks for posting this.
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)BWAAAHAAAAAAAAAAA!
MadDAsHell
(2,067 posts)since the law's inception.
SunSeeker
(51,696 posts)pberq
(2,950 posts)Although the Supreme Court has upheld the premium subsidies under the Affordable Care Act, the law remains incapable of remedying the U.S. health crisis, physician group says
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 25, 2015
Physicians for a National Health Program, an organization of 19,000 doctors who support single-payer national health insurance, released the following statement today:
Todays decision by the Supreme Court in King v. Burwell to uphold the Affordable Care Acts premium subsidies in about three dozen states will spare more than 6 million Americans the health and financial harms associated with the sudden loss of health insurance coverage.
For that reason alone the decision must be welcomed: Having health insurance is better than not having coverage, as several research studies have shown.
That said, the suffering that many Americans are experiencing today under our current health care arrangements is intolerable, with approximately 35 million people remaining uninsured, a comparable number underinsured, and rapidly growing barriers to medical care in the form of rising premiums, copayments, coinsurance and deductibles, and narrowing networks. . .
(more at link)
BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)because incredibly complex problems can never be solved in one attack.