If they hold with their current precedent they will uphold the law as written, meaning that nothing will change. Prior precedent from ALL the justices on the court specify that you need to read every line in a statute in the context of the rest of the statute, and in a case where the meaning is unclear you defer to the government's interpretation if it's reasonable.
I imagine it will be either 5-4 upholding or 6-3 upholding, although again it should be 9-0 in favor. There will be no reasoning with Scalia, Thomas, or Alito.
I have no recollection of the issue re: state versus fed exchanges back then.
Fern
Good point. But shouldn't that be argument for federal Medicaid expansion rather than argument against federal exchange subsidies? Why should my state legislature have the power to deal me out of a federal benefit without providing something of equal or greater value?IDK about that. Seems to describe the expansion of Medicaid perfectly.
Fern
In retrospect, perhaps it's unfortunate that the Democrats set the precedent that the meaning of "is" can be whatever we need it to be at the moment.That's because it wasn't an issue until Repubs wanted to argue about what the meaning of "is" is, create another propagandizing opportunity.
Good point. But shouldn't that be argument for federal Medicaid expansion rather than argument against federal exchange subsidies? Why should my state legislature have the power to deal me out of a federal benefit without providing something of equal or greater value?
-snip-
Understood, and it's a good point. I'm just arguing that benefits controlled by the federal government should stand apart from state legislation, to provide equal protection. One could make the inverse argument about equal protection in the market, i.e. you have no human right to be served a cake for your gay wedding because your state legislature failed to enact such legislation. I think as a matter of principle that all Americans should have the same human rights and the same access (or lack thereof) to federal benefits, regardless of their state's legislation.I thought you were trying to make a legal argument. I mentioned Medicaid expansion because I thought it seemed to suggest that there was no such legal argument.
Fern
Question for someone with knowledge of law...
I thought plaintiff layers have to either be the aggrieved party or represent the aggrieved party.
In this case I can't figure out who is/are the aggrieved party.
Absent that the case has no legal standing.
Legal Standing
Plaintiffs argue that they have standing because, without the subsidies, they would be exempt from the individual mandate because the cost of the cheapest insurance plan exceeded 8% of their income, but, with the subsidies, the subsidized cost was low enough to require plaintiffs to purchase insurance or pay a penalty.[33]
Question for someone with knowledge of law...
I thought plaintiff layers have to either be the aggrieved party or represent the aggrieved party.
In this case I can't figure out who is/are the aggrieved party.
Absent that the case has no legal standing.
Scalia is a piece of work, huh? The circular reasoning is astounding. He acknowledges that it should be fixed, asserts that congress will fix it if the court breaks it completely, ignoring the reasons it's come to him at all- Congress has already refused to fix it.
The whole thing is just pandering to a well propagandized base, him being part of that. The court has already provided their imprimatur. They'd damage the institution itself going back on it now.
Not only that but the states that would be most affected by this are red states.
I'd love to see the ACA fail because of this and watch the republicans pass stop gaps that do exactly what the ACA does minus the individual mandate with some tort reform added in and then when health costs still continue to rise at higher than post ACA levels the repubs will be looking dumb founded.
Was the Republican Party ever capable of governing without creating cluster fuck? (Serious question). I know no republican since Reagan has.
Who gets to take the credit for any legislation which gets passed is all the two major parties seem to care about nowadays. There's enough bad in the ACA that if the GOP had passed the exact same law the Democratic party would certainly be opposing it now, but since they passed it they'll defend it to the death.
Who gets to take the credit for any legislation which gets passed is all the two major parties seem to care about nowadays. There's enough bad in the ACA that if the GOP had passed the exact same law the Democratic party would certainly be opposing it now, but since they passed it they'll defend it to the death.
The dems solely own it. Granted it needs fixing.I rather suspect that Dems would be trying to fix it rather than kill it. There is a difference.
Does any Republican here really believe that ACA didn't mean to give subsidies to people in states which didn't set up an exchange?
The legal question is whether a four-word phrase in the expansive law saying subsidies are available to those buying insurance on exchanges "established by the state" has been correctly interpreted by the administration to allow subsidies to be available nationwide.
Carvin argued it was clear from the text of the law that Congress authorized subsidies for middle and low income individuals living only in exchanges "established by the states." Just 16 states have established their own exchanges, but millions of Americans living in the 34 states are receiving subsidies through federally facilitated exchanges.
lol Yup.
Interesting the way that partisan views change...
Uno
Yes, that was clearly the intent of that clause. However, other parts of the bill clearly indicate that the federal exchange is there to backstop those states who do not set up exchanges, and getting subsidies seems to me to be a very integral part of that backstopping. Your federal speed limit example is spot-on, but this is different because such bullying is generally limited to monies handed out to the state, to be disbursed as the state sees fit; this is a tax break handed out to individual taxpayers. Bad enough that we allow the federal government to bully the states using grants of their own citizens' tax revenue; do we really want to extend that leverage to the federal government bringing the pain directly to individuals, even for their own good?I don't buy into the "typo" theory. I think that language was written that way intentionally - as a way to convince any state that was hesitant to set up their own exchange to go ahead and set one up.
A simple "if you don't do X, then you will not receive money for Y" tactic. If you don't setup an exchange, then your state is not eligible to receive the subsidy." This is how 55 mph had become the law of the land when it came to highway speeds. This is how the federal government gets states to do something they otherwise would not do.
Would you want to be the Governor who has to explain to your voters why they can't get something that their neighbor just across the border gets?
Unfortunately this tactic could backfire big time on the plaintiffs. If this gets overturned, while it may be a political victory over President Obama, the plaintiffs will be the ones held accountable by the millions of people who now suddenly owe a good amount of money to the government. If this is ruled unconstitutional, do you really think the government will allow all those in non state exchange states to keep that subsidy money they already received? Ask any ordinary person who has had the pleasure of being "overpaid" by the federal government just what lengths the government will go to in order to be repaid.
Generally speaking, "the state" in legislation actually means a particular state, not the federal government. "The state" meaning government as a whole would be very imprecise even for lawyerspeak. Would be interesting though to know if there are any other examples of legislation using "the state" to mean any level of government.reuters reports the clause as
while cnn reports the clause as
if you ask me, "the state" singular refers to the government as a whole, and encompasses both the state and federal governments. in the case of "the states", that is plural, and would refer to the 50 states. if the clause contains "state" singular, i think the lawyer is wasting everoyne's time and money. if it's "states", as much as i hate to say it, he has a point.
amazing what one letter can do, heh. of course congress could just go fix it if it gets struck down, but good luck with that.
Actually, those are two different concepts. Imagine these two laws:
1. Congress passes a law requiring tomatoes to be included in every school lunch because tomatoes are unhealthy.
2. Congress passes a law prohibiting the sale of tomatoes because they are unhealthy.
The first law is logically invalid, because if the assumption that tomatoes are unhealthy is true, the law should prohibit, not mandate their consumption. The second law is logically valid, but it is unsound, because the assumption that tomatoes are unhealthy is false.
Scalia's comments indicate that the Supreme Court should overturn the first law because Congress didn't follow the rules of logic when passing it, but that Supreme Court has no authority to overturn the second law, because it doesn't get to second-guess Congress' assumptions.
Now, the above doesn't put Scalia in the clear, because we would need to examine those statements in their actual context to determine whether Scalia was actually making the distinction between validity and soundness, or whether he was trying to sound intelligent in justifying his inconsistent decisions.
"Our consideration is limited to the present circumstances, for the problem of equal protection in election processes generally presents many complexities
I don't buy into the "typo" theory. I think that language was written that way intentionally - as a way to convince any state that was hesitant to set up their own exchange to go ahead and set one up.
.
I do believe the law was setup as a carrot for the states to build their own exchanges. But when so many states didnt set them up they shat the bed and decided it was to extend to all exchanges regardless of who runs them. And no, I dont believe the SCOTUS will side with the plantiffs regardless. Too big to fail at this point.
"What’s important to remember politically about this is if you're a state and you don’t set up an exchange, that means your citizens don't get their tax credits—but your citizens still pay the taxes that support this bill. So you’re essentially saying [to] your citizens you’re going to pay all the taxes to help all the other states in the country. I hope that that's a blatant enough political reality that states will get their act together and realize there are billions of dollars at stake here in setting up these exchanges. But, you know, once again the politics can get ugly around this."
Can you find 1 contemporaneous account that agrees with your theory?