Decided 6-3 this morning; Scalia, Thomas and Alito dissenting.
The text of the ACA allows for subsidies from the federal government to people who purchase policies through state exchanges. This was specifically crafted this way to try to coerce the states into creating state exchanges, however less than 20 states did so. The feds proceeded to grant subsidies to people in those 30+ states that don’t have state exchanges. The subsidies were challenged as illegal and this decision rejects that challenge and allows the subsidies to continue.
A realistic summary of the case from the dissent:
The Act that Congress passed makes tax credits available only on an “Exchange established by the State.” This Court, however, concludes that this limitation would prevent the rest of the Act from working as well as hoped. So it rewrites the law to make tax credits available everywhere. We should start calling this law SCOTUScare.
“The somersaults of statutory interpretation they have performed (“penalty” means tax, “further [Medicaid] payments to the State” means only incremental Medicaid payments to the State, “established by the State” means not established by the State) will be cited by litigants endlessly, to the confusion of honest jurisprudence. And the cases will publish forever the discouraging truth that the Supreme Court of the United States favors some laws over others, and is prepared to do whatever it takes to uphold and assist its favorites.”
Hard to put an exact date on it, but there’s hundreds of nails in its coffin now.
Those of us who try to believe in some principle of law greater than a fraud that some con-artists in DC can pretend they got 51% support for will need to refocus on something positive.
This Santaclausocrasy isn’t sustainable anywhere. A couple of quarters of GDP revised to negative with the only “growth” being spending for Obamacare should be a warning if there were any adults in the room. Yet the future, with either party in charge, likely won’t change. Charles Hughes-Smith’s Neofeudalism Principle #1:: “If the citizenry cannot replace a dysfunctional government and/or limit the power of the financial Aristocracy at the ballot box, the nation is a democracy in name only.” We are now just a democracy in name only.
Well, back to work. All those lazy ****ers need someone to prop them up and pay their “subsidies” so they keep voting for subsidies. Welcome to the U.S. of Assholes - the unholy union of statism, corruption, and fraud.
Yes, us getting Hillary next is almost a done deal. The GOP will nominate Jeb and he will go down in flames as big media makes him squirm over his views on gays, abortion and maybe rape or something else silly. You think they nit-picked on Romney…you just wait.
The media will get Hillary elected. When you control the messaging…sadly…you control the election.
I just say that because of what it does to separation of powers. SCOTUS is now in the business of writing laws wholesale. If a law is drafted poorly so it won’t work, no problem, just ignore the plain meaning instead of ruling as the plain language requires and letting congress fix it.
nova, I agree. But this isn’t the only or very first time. Maybe the Republic has been dead for years now? I think that historians 200+ years from now will probably look at 1988-2000 as the last years of the Republic, 2001-2010 (or so) as the start of empire, and 2011-onward (who knows) as fully imperial. We still have the window dressing of a Constitutional republic, but that’s not how things function today.
