Well, the Supreme Court issued its ruling on King v. Burwell today. By now you know the result. What can I say that hasn’t already been said?
As usual, Antonin Scalia stood on the burning deck. Some excerpts from his dissent:
This case requires us to decide whether someone who buys insurance on an Exchange established by the Secretary gets tax credits. You would think the answer would be obvious””so obvious there would hardly be a need for the Supreme Court to hear a case about it. In order to receive any money under §36B, an individual must enroll in an insurance plan through an “Exchange established by the State.’ The Secretary of Health and Human Services is not a State. So an Exchange established by the Secretary is not an Exchange established by the State””which means people who buy health insurance through such an Exchange get no money under §36B.
Words no longer have meaning if an Exchange that is not established by a State is “established by the State.’ It is hard to come up with a clearer way to limit tax credits to state Exchanges than to use the words “established by the State.’ And it is hard to come up with a reason to include the words “by the State’ other than the purpose of limiting credits to state Exchanges. “[T]he plain, obvious,and rational meaning of a statute is always to be preferred to any curious, narrow, hidden sense that nothing but the exigency of a hard case and the ingenuity and study of an acute and powerful intellect would discover.’ Lynch v. Alworth-Stephens Co., 267 U. S. 364, 370 (1925) (internal quotation marks omitted). Under all the usual rules of interpretation, in short, the Government should lose this case. But normal rules of interpretation seem always to yield to the overriding principle of the present Court: The Affordable Care Act must be saved. …
It is not our place to judge the quality of the care and deliberation that went into this or any other law. A law enacted by voice vote with no deliberation whatever is fully as binding upon us as one enacted after years of study, months of committee hearings, and weeks of debate. Much less is it our place to make everything come out right when Congress does not do its job properly. It is up to Congress to design its laws with care, and it is up to the people to hold them to account if they fail to carry out that responsibility.
Rather than rewriting the law under the pretense of interpreting it, the Court should have left it to Congress to decide what to do about the Act’s limitation of tax credits to state Exchanges. If Congress values above everything else the Act’s applicability across the country, it could make tax credits available in every Exchange. If it prizes state involvement in the Act’s implementation, it could continue to limit tax credits to state Exchanges while taking other steps to mitigate the economic consequences predicted by the Court. If Congress wants to accommodate both goals, it could make tax credits available everywhere while offering new incentives for States to set up their own Exchanges. And if Congress thinks that the present design of the Act works well enough, it could do nothing. Congress could also do something else altogether, entirely abandoning the structure of the Affordable Care Act. The Court’s insistence on making a choice that should be made by Congress both aggrandizes judicial power and encourages congressional lassitude.
A dark day, with more to come.
30 Comments
A bad day for the Obama haters, but a great day for America.
Jonathan Chait explains why few outside the right wing bubble ever took this patently absurd lawsuit seriously, while the link towards the end of his article explains why the plaintiff’s case, and Scalia’s dissent, are groundless.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/06/another-obamacare-doom-scenario-does-not-happen.html#jumpLink
Bah. Goodbye, rule of law.
Keith Burgess-Jackson comments (h/t: Bill V.):
Fine, then. You guys own this thing.
I don’t know how “patently absurd” it is. Jonathan Gruber thought it was an important point. It’s another example of passing a law by counting on … What was it? … “The stupidity of the American people”.
As far as Scalia’s dissent, can anyone make sense of this? Is it parody? I think Yglesias is one of the dumber writers at the very dumb Vox, but this leaves me speechless.
The rule of law was not only preserved, it was enhanced, Scalia’s argle bargle notwithstanding. It was a simple case of statutory interpretation, where courts have always taken an Ockham’s razor approach: the most plausible explanation wins. When one part of a law is ambiguous or contradicts other parts of the law, jurists look at the entire law in context. Roberts’s opinion is dispositive.
As for Burgess-Jackson’s doomsday scenario: thus far, we have been told that fewer people would be insured with Obamacare; that employment would sag and the economy would crater; that a demographic death spiral would sink it; that health care costs would spike up; that insurance premiums would explode along with health care costs; that there would be a massive data breach; that the back end would fail and insurers wouldn’t know who they were covering; that costs would be over budget; that tax payers would revolt last April because of changes in tax filing requirements; and that those who became insured because of Obamacare would be unhappy with it.
All of these predictions turned out to be completely wrong. I’m sure you will forgive me for being skeptical about Burgess-Jackson’s doomsday scenario as well.
As for owning it: of course we own it. There are two towering figures in the history of American health care: Lyndon Johnson and Barack Obama. Both men will go down in history as Presidents whose health care reforms saved and extended innumerable lives. In January 2017, as Obama leaves the country in a far, far better place than he found it, his legacy will be secure.
Of course, if it makes you feel better, you can always remember what things were like before Obamacare, as this January 2014 news release indicates:
http://www.theonion.com/article/nation-recalls-simpler-time-when-health-care-syste-34957
Rubbish. The Court ignored the plain text of the statute — text that was actually revised into its present form, and for a reason. Scalia’s dissent is what is “dispositive”. And contrary to your glowing assessment, the ACA is a continuously evolving disaster.
(This, readers, is what we are up against. Weep for your nation.)
On this we can agree: his legacy will be secure.
Give the Supreme Court credit for striking that delicate balance between what the law says and what they want it to say.
I wouldn’t call what the Court did today “balance”.
What Roberts means to say is we mustn’t take the wording of Obamacare literally. Rather, the road to health is paved with its good intentions.
Ha! That’s a good one. Not the Court’s job, though. Words have meanings. Or had.
Well, any way you look at it, Hillary if she survives to be nominated, will have to strap on this Democratcare debacle and run with it.
When you can no longer appeal to the plain meaning of things, you have officially entered hell.
Dictionaries are an invention to oppress the left.
I don’t like hearing “Hillary” and “strap on” in the same sentence.
A bad day for the Obama haters, but a great day for America.
Don’t forget logic. It is a bad day for logic.
I can’t write any more without using expletives. … can’t help …
Oh, and One Eyed Man, go fuck yourself. This isn’t about Obama. It is about simple logic and the rule of law. The god damn law of non-contradiction. One of the three laws of thought, without which, language and communication are meaningless. I take it you are not a Kantian. For you, apparently the ends justifies the means.
And yeah, ACA continues to be a disaster.
In Raich, the court said Interstate commerce = intrastate commerce. In Kelo, the court said that the 5th amendment tells government can steal land for a private, not public, reasons.
http://thefederalist.com/2014/11/12/14-ways-obamacare-is-still-a-disaster-that-you-wont-learn-from-vox/
I take it OEM doesn’t pay for his own insurance. Everyone I know who does, has seen their premiums rise, not fall.
Actually, Troy, Peter runs his own business, and he probably does pay for his own insurance. No doubt it’s fabulous, and only costs a dollar a day, with no deductible, purchased on one of the exchanges, with nary a hitch. Did I mention how nice the weather is in California, too? What a great president.
Meanwhile, I know lots of people, as do you, who have lost their plans, their doctors, and have had premiums and deductibles go up. And I also know a lot of doctors, a couple of whom have even had to close their private practices. I have yet to find one who has anything good to say about ACA; most of what they’ve said I can’t repeat here. I make a point of asking whether they would advise a young person nowadays to go into medicine. Most say no.
….Yeah. hundreds of years from now when they study the fall of this once mighty nation, they will point to SCOTUS as enabling the slow motion disintegration we get to live through.
Concur. The rule of law had a nice run, but all good things must come to an end.
At this point, Hillary’s looking pretty good, I think. Let’s get this thing over with. To quote my friend Mangan, what’s falling should be pushed.
What will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back? It will be when they come for the guns, or when the EBT cards stop working. Whichever comes first.
where courts have always taken an Ockham’s razor approach: the most plausible explanation wins
It is the simplest answer that wins. Plausability doesn’t have anything to do with it. The answer with the fewest assumptions wins. Ochams razor is a tool of epistemology, not statutory interpretation. In this case, it is very simple. Even a liberal can understand it unless they are blinded by achieving certain ends above all else. Here, “by the states” means by the things we call states. What we have here is a 22 page non-ockham razor rationalization to justify “by the states” = “Not by the states.”
When one part of a law is ambiguous or contradicts other parts of the law, jurists look at the entire law in context. Roberts’s opinion is dispositive.
Well we don’t have to bother with that contradiction (probably secretly a tool of the patriarchy…them men and their math) crap any more.
And context? How does one take context from a 3000 page block of legalese? I doubt any member of the court actually took the time to read the whole ACA. And if they did, the only context one can glean from ACA is that it is a monumentally crappy piece of legislation.
P.S. Your chocolate rations will be raised to 20 grams per week, up from 25 grams per week.
OK…that is all.
“a monumentally crappy piece of legislation”. Ultimately designed to “give” us single payer. Dems play a long game.
Posted June 25, 2015 at 6:08 pm
The rule of law was not only preserved, it was enhanced
Troy: you can whine and curse all you want, but the simple fact is that the most conservative Court since at least the Roosevelt administration rejected the plaintiffs’ case by a two-to-one margin. That is a clear and convincing decision. I think the six Justices who voted for the government’s position – as well as the Fourth Circuit judges, who unanimously upheld the regulation based on Chevron deference – know a little more about logic and the rule of law than you do.
Unless One-Eye, things’ve changed since *someone very close to you* mentioned something pretty near to, “Ah Dad, that’s my music!”
I was under the impression One-Eye you were some Silicon Valley type.
How’s that ACA working out for your “not-white” set, care to provide us a breakdance?
Oops I mean break-Down of “Your” company’s experience/fortunes since?
Just in the sense of kinda, “Putting your Mouth where your money is” mind.
More applesauce. Chevron only applies if the law is ambiguous. It was not.
I think the six Justices who voted for the government’s position — as well as the Fourth Circuit judges, who unanimously upheld the regulation based on Chevron deference — know a little more about logic and the rule of law than you do.
Someone needs to introduce OEM to the Peter Principle.
BTW, Chevron in an abomination too. Thanks to Chevron, we now have all these unaccountable agencies like the DEA, TSA, FCC, BTF, CIA, etc.
What you don’t seem to understand is that the integrity of the court is all it has. And cases like this diminish the integrity of the court. Yeah you think it is a good decision because your side won, but you’ll be the one whining when a republican president uses this precedent to his advantage.
Whoa Troy
Today’s World is a different animal altogether. Witness the Patriot Act.
Fourth Amendment now is a “Nominal” and the Fifth – well nowadays making A No statement has been described – and upheld – as Lying to the FBI.
When that One-Eyed Feller earlier stated on the earlier thread at June 25, 2015 at 6:08 pm;
This is something different altogether.
The Rule of Law is either One thing or it is Neither … or as should be obvious “Subject to Interpretation.”
Congress for some time has abdicated we all recognize – those already elected need … well We The People recognize exactly … but think Congress is gonna “Legislate” against that?
To believe so we’d have to be on the level of One-Eye’s I believe (bullshit) which I don’t think likely in the near-term.
The American Republic – forgive my french – is Fucked.
More of the usual rubbish. I don’t recall exactly when you stopped caring about the truth, Peter, but you are really hitting your stride lately.
Hearing it is bad enough. Confronting the image just made me throw up in my mouth a little bit …
Dude, where’s my Country?
We knew this was coming of course:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-30/humana-gets-at-least-549-million-in-obamacare-risk-payments