Op-ed: Three Issues Soon to be Decided...Part 2

Op-ed: 
Three Issues Soon to be Decided...Part 2
By: Diane Sori / The Patriot Factor / Right Side Patriots on CPR Worldwide Media cprworldwidemedia.net

“Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them...if at all possible, we must interpret the act in a way that is consistent with the former, and avoids the latter.”
- Chief Justice John Roberts on the court's decision to uphold the ObamaCare subsidies

In part 1 of this 3 part series, I discussed the upcoming SCOTUS decision on same-sex marriage, but yesterday we were blindsided by the SCOTUS decision coming down when it did instead of next week...as we all expected...on the anything but Affordable Care Act...aka ObamaCare.

Remember when in 2012 the High Court in a 5 to 4 vote narrowly upheld the law and its hugely unpopular 'individual mandate'...well now it's gone from bad to worse as the justices have ruled by a 6 to 3 vote that ObamaCare...despite Roberts' words that the original sloppy work on the part of Congress ”containing more than a few examples of inartful drafting”...is constitutional and will stand, subsidies and all. And why... because they see tax credits being allowed in all 50 states NOT just in the 16 that have authorized their own online insurance exchanges.

And just like in 2012, once again Chief Justice Roberts sided with the liberal justices and sold us out...as did Justice Anthony Kennedy with only Justices Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas dissented...with Roberts NOT only writing up the decision but NEVER even asking one question during the length of the hearings. Guess this Republican appointee turned out to be a full-fledged RINO...albeit one dressed in a long black-robe and carrying a gavel.

And how the liberals led by Obama are now doing the happy-dance for by upholding one of the central components of ObamaCare...backing the subsidies...which are tax credits used by millions of Americans to buy insurance...the SCOTUS will most probably NOT have to deal with anymore legal challenges to ObamaCare for the remainder of Barack HUSSEIN Obama's term in office leaving ObamaCare in place as his signature piece of legislation.

And to add insult to injury...to rub salt in our wounds...the Democrats are still crying 'foul' that the challenge was even taken up by the High Court in the first place, because, they claim, Republicans tried to sabotage by any means possible a law designed to cover at least 30 million uninsured people...as they deliberately forget the millions who lost their private insurance that they were happy with due to ObamaCare.

And they also claim that their victory helps to avert a collapse in state insurance markets. And that in and of itself is quite untrue for if the ruling had come down against ObamaCare 6.4 million people...65% of which receive federal health subsidies...out of the roughly 10.2 million people who signed up for ObamaCare and paid premiums through this past March...would probably be forced to drop out of ObamaCare because of their 'tripling' and even in some instances 'quadrupling' premiums. Remember Obama's claiming that premiums would drastically drop NOT rise and as always he lied...well those dropping out would have gone back into the private health insurance sector or done without health insurance for as long as they could NO matter that they would have to pay a penalty.

Subsidies...the crux of the current ruling centered on a four-words “established by the state”...four words that stated that federal tax subsidies for health insurance purchases were only available in insurance marketplaces called 'exchanges' that had been set up by the states. But those who challenged the law (King v. Burwell, 14-114) said that the words meant subsidies were NOT legally available in the 34 states that never authorized their own exchanges, thus forcing those folks to use the federal healthcare.gov system...where they received an average subsidy of a mere $272 per month...and if now those subsidies should indeed be invalidated.

In his brief Roberts said that other parts of the law “suggested” that “established by the state” most assuredly includes the federal exchange, and that the challenger's interpretation would have led to results that Congress NEVER intended.  

“Whether those credits are available on federal exchanges is thus a question of deep ‘economic and political significance’ that is central to this statutory scheme; had Congress wished to assign that question to an agency, it surely would have done so expressly,” Roberts said, alluding that to rule otherwise would create insurance “death spirals” with all but the sickest people dropping their policies.

And he also added that the court “must respect the role of the legislature and take care not to undo what it has done,” forgetting Nancy Pelosi's infamous words, “You must pass the bill before you can find out what's in the bill,” and that the above mentioned “sloppy” vote itself remains questionable in nature because it was taken in the middle of the night with each and every Democrat voting in favor of the 'Affordable Care Act' and NOT one single Republican doing so.

However, even this ruling still allows individual states to opt out of the law’s expansion of the Medicaid program for the poor...and that was the part of ObamaCare that a vast number of people signed up for. Twenty-two states to date have refused to expand Medicaid, reducing the number of people eligible for subsidized insurance by almost 4 million, according to recent studies by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

"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," said Justice Antonin Scalia...a hero in my eyes...who rightfully called the vote “purely political” and wrote so in the court's dissenting opinion. And that dissent included his also saying that “the court majority could not read the plain language before them”...ouch...thereby having six of the justices erroneously giving more weight to the context of the entire law than to the plain language of the specific section they should solely have ruled on.

And so the SCOTUS...led by Chief Justice Roberts who said, “In a democracy, the power to make law rests with those chosen by the people...our role is more confined—’to say what the law is.'” basically ruled that the intent of Congress...that the intent of government...was clear enough in their eyes to override contradictory and questionable language in the law itself, and that by this ruling avoided was the daunting task of negotiating with Republicans a fix to the law or having the 'Affordable Care Act'...ObamaCare...ultimately crash and burn.

And crash and burn would have been preferable to having to wait until 2016 to win back the White House for the chance to ring the death knell for the monstrosity known as ObamaCare...something so few wanted but something that sadly, we are all still stuck with for now. And as Obama gloats and shows we Conservatives his vile and evil smirk once again...we most assuredly know that the only way to get rid of ObamaCare once and for all is that we must...I repeat must...all unite behind whomever finally gets the Republican nod...that we must put the social issues on the back burner for now...and prevent through the ballot box any Democrat from ascending to the presidency...period.

 

http://thepatriotfactor.blogspot.com/2015/06/op-ed-three-issues-soon-to-be-decided_26.html 

If you like what you see, please "Like" us on Facebook either here or here. Please follow us on Twitter here.