The Affordable Care Act II - Because Mr. Obama Loves You All

[DC Tom]

Interesting turn of events today, for any still paying attention.

 

Foolish lawsuit that should rightfully be shot down.

Edited November 7, 2014 by DC Tom

[Keukasmallies]

Foolish lawsuit that should rightfully be shot down.

 

The wording of the law appears to be a casualty resulting from Congress not reading the bill. Just another opportunity to shine the light of accuracy on a flawed bill, now law.

[TakeYouToTasker]

Foolish lawsuit that should rightfully be shot down.

Hardly. The law says what the law says. If the people who wrote the law don't like what the law says, they should have written it to say something different; or, failing that, they should change what it says.

 

Further, the legal precedent set by conflating the terms "Federal" and "State" at the level of the SCOTUS would have absurd ramifications.

[B-Man]

The Supreme Court To Hear the Case Against Obamacare Subsidies

 

Over at the Washington Examiner, Philip Klein explains:

 

President Obama’s healthcare law is heading back to the U.S. Supreme Court.

 

Justices on Friday agreed to review whether it was illegal for residents of 36 states to receive federal subsidies to help them purchase insurance.

 

Previous Supreme Court cases focused on the law’s individual mandate, Medicaid expansion, and employer contraception mandate. At issue this time are the subsidies that the federal government provides for individuals purchasing insurance through Obamacare. Though the text of the law says the subsidies were to go to individuals obtaining insurance through an “exchange established by the state,” a rule released by the Internal Revenue Service subsequently instructed that subsidies would also apply to exchanges set up on behalf of states by the federal government.

 

 

 

Obamacare returns to Supreme Court

 

 

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[IDBillzFan]

The law says what the law says. If the people who wrote the law don't like what the law says, they should have written it to say something different; or, failing that, they should change what it says.

 

Pretty much. Not sure why this is foolish, but I'm all ears.

[B-Man]

Four Reasons the Supreme Court Is Likely to Rule against the Obama Administration in Burwell

by John Yoo

 

FTA:

There was no split in the circuits — the lower courts actually seemed to accept the Obama administration’s misreading of its own law. If the Court agreed with the lower courts, or wasn’t sure about it, they could have just allowed the issue to further percolate (as the Justices themselves will often say when they pass on the opportunity to take a case). The grant of certiorari (which takes four Justices) only makes sense if a majority wants to overrule the lower courts quickly.

 

 

Fifth Reason Obama Adm. Should Lose Burwell

by Wesley J. Smith

 

 

 

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[IDBillzFan]

Funny thing about progressives. They have no problem explaining the main reason they screw things up is because they're incompetent.

 

Today, Paul Krugman explains that ACA shouldn't be flipped by the Justices because of "a typo."

 

Yes, apparently, what the authors meant and what they actually wrote are two different things, and so the law should stand because...y'know...typo. You don't need to put this to the courts. Just ask the authors what they meant.

 

No. Really. Because now many will die because of the typo.

 

Last week the court shocked many observers by saying that it was willing to hear a case claiming that the wording of one clause in the Affordable Care Act sets drastic limits on subsidies to Americans who buy health insurance. It’s a ridiculous claim; not only is it clear from everything else in the act that there was no intention to set such limits, you can ask the people who drafted the law what they intended, and it wasn’t what the plaintiffs claim. But the fact that the suit is ridiculous is no guarantee that it won’t succeed — not in an environment in which all too many Republican judges have made it clear that partisan loyalty trumps respect for the rule of law.

 

Side note: I have come to avoid reading comments in articles any more because they seem to mostly just be hired kids at computers doing gatorman-like copy/paste, but I do love reading comments on Krugman articles because these people somehow believe Krugman is their personal friend, and often times write comments that are longer than his article, calling him "Paul" all the time. Funny stuff.

[B-Man]

VIDEO: “Stupid voters” would have killed Obamacare …so they hid the truth on purpose.

 

One of Obamacare’s architects was recently caught in a nasty moment of honesty that has the potential to further damage Democrats who signed on to the Affordable Care Act.

 

Jonathan Gruber, who served as a technical advisor to President Obama during the ACA’s planning phases, revealed during a panel discussion that Obamacare was not designed as a tax, and that the lack of transparency about the new law was the only thing that saved the controversial legislation from an untimely death in Congress.

 

“This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies. Okay, so it’s written to do that. In terms of risk rated subsidies, if you had a law which said that healthy people are going to pay in – you made explicit healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed… Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really really critical for the thing to pass… Look, I wish Mark was right that we could make it all transparent, but I’d rather have this law than not.”

 

 

 

Video at the link:

 

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[Doc]

Funny thing about progressives. They have no problem explaining the main reason they screw things up is because they're incompetent.

 

Today, Paul Krugman explains that ACA shouldn't be flipped by the Justices because of "a typo."

 

Yes, apparently, what the authors meant and what they actually wrote are two different things, and so the law should stand because...y'know...typo. You don't need to put this to the courts. Just ask the authors what they meant.

 

No. Really. Because now many will die because of the typo.

 

 

 

Side note: I have come to avoid reading comments in articles any more because they seem to mostly just be hired kids at computers doing gatorman-like copy/paste, but I do love reading comments on Krugman articles because these people somehow believe Krugman is their personal friend, and often times write comments that are longer than his article, calling him "Paul" all the time. Funny stuff.

 

Video at the link:

 

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This was mentioned before, but Gruber also admitted that they intentionally specified that subsidies were only for state exchanges because they wanted people to use them. So there goes the "typo" argument.

[B-Man]

More news...............

 

HHS lowers ObamaCare enrollment expectations http://ow.ly/E4rfJ

 

 

 

HHS: New Obamacare Enrollments Will Be One Third of What CBO Projected

 

 

That sure as hell will screw-up the "projections"

 

 

 

Whatever happened to the 40 million who desperately needed health care coverage ?

 

 

 

 

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[TakeYouToTasker]

More news...............

 

HHS lowers ObamaCare enrollment expectations http://ow.ly/E4rfJ

 

 

 

HHS: New Obamacare Enrollments Will Be One Third of What CBO Projected

 

 

That sure as hell will screw-up the "projections"

 

 

 

Whatever happened to the 40 million who desperately needed health care coverage ?

 

 

 

 

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They may "need" it, but they don't prioritize this need, at all, until they are at the point where they want to consume services. They are consciously choosing to be irresponsible, because they know someone else will ultimately be forced to foot the bill. They don't want that to change.

[DC Tom]

Pretty much. Not sure why this is foolish, but I'm all ears.

 

Actually...I withdraw that comment. I did some reading over the weekend, and my memory of the section of the law was not entirely perfect. The exact phrasing of the ACA and court precedent both support the lawsuit.

Today, Paul Krugman explains that ACA shouldn't be flipped by the Justices because of "a typo."

 

Krugman's analogy is fundamentally flawed.

 

According to the text, the Krugman lot wasn’t a rough rectangle; it was a triangle more than a hundred feet long but only around a yard wide at the base.

On examination, it was clear what had happened: Whoever wrote down the lot’s description had somehow skipped a clause. And of course the town clerk fixed the language. After all, it would have been ludicrous and cruel to take away most of my parents’ property on the basis of sloppy drafting, when the drafters’ intention was perfectly clear.

 

No, Paul, legally your parents owned precisely what was in the deed. And if the town clerk amended the deed, the amended deed is illegal, and your parents still own a long skinny triangle of land. You can't just ask a clerk to change a legal document, there's a legal process that it has to go through of discovery, comment, signing, and recordation, because there might be other parties impacted by the change in the deed, and no matter how justified those changes may be, those other parties still have to be informed and involved.

 

The same thing holds for laws. There is no "Oh, that's poorly written, I actually meant this" exemption for the authors of a law, because that might have a very wide impact and shouldn't be changed administratively on a whim. Like a clerk arbitrarily changing a deed, rewriting laws at the podium introduces uncertainty into people's obligations under the law.

 

Krugman's very world-view is flawed at the most basic level, as he presumes on both the "Great Man" view of history and the "nation of people over laws" view of government. The former is simply inaccurate; the latter seems democratic, because idiots like Krugman misunderstand it: nations are not bodies of people. Nations are bodies of laws. Ideally, in our case, our nation is a body of laws that serve the people. That's why Congress' responsibility is to pass good, coherent laws with none of this "We have to pass it to see what's in it" nonsense. It's also why the court system exists - as a check on Congressional incoherence and irresponsibility.

 

It's also why your parents still own a long skinny triangle of land, and why the ACA must be adjudicated in court and, if incorrect, changed to accurately reflect its intention. Because we live in a country, embodying the principles of The Enlightenment, our own Revolution, and the French Revolution, that does not allow for the arbitrary alteration of our legal principles by those holding power, be they the town clerk or the President.

[Keukasmallies]

The way the bill was written, and the way the wording in question remains in the law, appears to contradict the way the IRS is administering the law in general and specifically the section we're discussing here. Of course, one must remember that to catch the error (if it is/was an error) in the bill one would have to have read it.

 

IF the wording is convoluted by the SC, and the current practice is upheld, the reasoning of the court will become fodder for beau coup threads here in Sanityville.

 

Hope and Change. I'm a' hopin they change it.

Edited November 10, 2014 by Keukasmallies

[B-Man]

 

Actually...I withdraw that comment. I did some reading over the weekend, and my memory of the section of the law was not entirely perfect. The exact phrasing of the ACA and court precedent both support the lawsuit.

 

 

 

Welcome back to the fight, this time I know our side will win..............................

 

 

 

 

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[B-Large]

- Expanded coverage, there should be a base level of coverage that includes preventative care, that everyone in the US has access to, regardless of economic capability.

 

- Overall lower prices.

 

For the most part, I'm ok with the quality of healthcare in the US, it's the coverage and access parts that I think need solutions.

 

So my opinion/theory, is that a single payer system would help with this. It'd mean increasing taxes in our progressive tax model, but the effect on most citizens would be negligible, since they would no longer be paying out of their paychecks/pockets for privatized insurance. I imagine the rich would have to pay more tax, and they would also want "fancy" options, so they'd buy a "fancy" private insurance option.

 

Yes, this comes down to a limited "wealth redistribution", which, I'm personally ok with to an extent. My taxes would likely go up in such a situation. That being said, if there's a way to achieve the above via other methods, I'm on board. And if my "theory" is wrong, I'm fine with that as well. As long as there's a way to get the results I'd like to see.

 

We need a national risk pool. I used to be a State based advocate, but this move can been sobering to how impractical a State based option really is for so many people.

 

We need:

 

- a Risk Pool that includes all 330 Million Americans. In the end who cares where the the payment comes from, whether it be Cigna, Aetna or a Government Agency- one stipulation, they Government under no circumstances can they touch a dime of that risk pool money for other "needs".

 

- After we establish a Federal Flat/ Fair tax (I know, funny), automatically assign each American a deductible for their family. If you make 500K a year, it gonna be a big deductible. If you make 15K a year, it will probably be very small. But every person needs to pay for their care, IMO, prevention visits, Mammograms, etc. Deductible encourage good utilization of resources and would creative competitive mini markets for all kinds of services.

 

- Create an entity that has bargaining leverage to squeeze the best and lowest prices out of Drug Makers and Device makers. Let drug companies and Device makers out the heat on other countries and their health systems, were tired of subsidizing their cheap drug and cheaper devices.

 

this hodge podge work around ACA thing, while has greatly benefited my wife and I more that I can say, needs to be scrapped and something much simpler be put in place that curbs cost, cuts administrative boondoggles, insurance company paperwork mazes, takes the sweet rides away from drug makers, and makes every American have a stake in making the system work and work well.

[DC Tom]

We need a national risk pool. I used to be a State based advocate, but this move can been sobering to how impractical a State based option really is for so many people.

 

We need:

 

- a Risk Pool that includes all 330 Million Americans. In the end who cares where the the payment comes from, whether it be Cigna, Aetna or a Government Agency- one stipulation, they Government under no circumstances can they touch a dime of that risk pool money for other "needs".

 

- After we establish a Federal Flat/ Fair tax (I know, funny), automatically assign each American a deductible for their family. If you make 500K a year, it gonna be a big deductible. If you make 15K a year, it will probably be very small. But every person needs to pay for their care, IMO, prevention visits, Mammograms, etc. Deductible encourage good utilization of resources and would creative competitive mini markets for all kinds of services.

 

- Create an entity that has bargaining leverage to squeeze the best and lowest prices out of Drug Makers and Device makers. Let drug companies and Device makers out the heat on other countries and their health systems, were tired of subsidizing their cheap drug and cheaper devices.

 

this hodge podge work around ACA thing, while has greatly benefited my wife and I more that I can say, needs to be scrapped and something much simpler be put in place that curbs cost, cuts administrative boondoggles, insurance company paperwork mazes, takes the sweet rides away from drug makers, and makes every American have a stake in making the system work and work well.

 

Not a great plan, as it ignores certain realities of how both the government and industry have to work.

 

But it's a better plan than a lot I've seen. Including the ACA.

[Alaska Darin]

We need a national risk pool. I used to be a State based advocate, but this move can been sobering to how impractical a State based option really is for so many people.

 

We need:

 

- a Risk Pool that includes all 330 Million Americans. In the end who cares where the the payment comes from, whether it be Cigna, Aetna or a Government Agency- one stipulation, they Government under no circumstances can they touch a dime of that risk pool money for other "needs".

 

- After we establish a Federal Flat/ Fair tax (I know, funny), automatically assign each American a deductible for their family. If you make 500K a year, it gonna be a big deductible. If you make 15K a year, it will probably be very small. But every person needs to pay for their care, IMO, prevention visits, Mammograms, etc. Deductible encourage good utilization of resources and would creative competitive mini markets for all kinds of services.

 

- Create an entity that has bargaining leverage to squeeze the best and lowest prices out of Drug Makers and Device makers. Let drug companies and Device makers out the heat on other countries and their health systems, were tired of subsidizing their cheap drug and cheaper devices.

 

this hodge podge work around ACA thing, while has greatly benefited my wife and I more that I can say, needs to be scrapped and something much simpler be put in place that curbs cost, cuts administrative boondoggles, insurance company paperwork mazes, takes the sweet rides away from drug makers, and makes every American have a stake in making the system work and work well.

You can't squeeze money out of the drug makers as long as they're funding the FDA. That's the dirty little secret about evil corporations - without them, you can't have the bureaucratic behemoth that is the United States government.

[Dorkington]

The health industry, in general, dumps a lot of money into lobbying. So, the reality is, no single payer/national pool system will ever happen, since a lot of big corporations would lose out on big profits.

[Keukasmallies]

I'm hoping SCOTUS finds this provision to mean what it says so POTUS will have to scramble yet again. Maybe another executive order...?

[Nanker]

Certainly. He can issue an EO that nullifies the recent elections, appoint all Democrats as winners of the races and pass the abortion one more time. Democrats love abortions.