| Healthcare Bill Part III; Obamacare | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Mar 3 2014, 02:20 PM (48,592 Views) | |
| kbp | Mar 4 2015, 11:58 AM Post #1696 |
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http://www.nationaljournal.com/health-care/why-the-obamacare-case-drives-washington-crazy-20150302 Why the Obamacare Case Drives Washington Crazy Everything you thought you knew about the Affordable Care Act might be wrong. By Sam Baker [or Baker's reporting is March 2, 2015 The Supreme Court's latest Obamacare case is a mind-bender for the people who know the law best. Lawmakers, congressional staffers, policy analysts, lobbyists, and reporters spent more than a year slogging through the legislative debate over the Affordable Care Act—through months of negotiations, weeks of markups, reams of reporting, endless floor debates and interviews, and multiple make-or-break moments for President Obama. The Senate even voted on Christmas Eve. [Not really. Nobody got what they wanted, as Ocare was a conglomeration of parts from other bills quickly assembled to please the more moderate Obama-butt-kissers and get the Senate vote before Brown took office.] But now, the Supreme Court might rule that everything they thought they knew about Obamacare was wrong. The court will hear oral arguments Wednesday in King v. Burwell, the lawsuit aiming to invalidate the Affordable Care Act's insurance subsidies in most of the country. The challengers in King will try to persuade the court that the law only allows subsidies in a handful of states—and, moreover, that Congress wanted it that way. That's an awfully hard sell for an awful lot of the people who were around in 2009 and 2010, especially the lawmakers and staffers whose intentions the court is now trying to divine. "In some ways, you can't second-guess the Supreme Court, which just leaves you surprised that it's gone this far. Because it's so clear that this wasn't even in our minds," said Yvette Fontenot, who worked on the Affordable Care Act as a Democratic staffer for the Senate Finance Committee. [I say BS! Recall this article starts off telling of the hard work from all of them working together to pass Ocare! That committee Yvette was on INTENTIONALLY eliminated the language within the HELP committee bill which EXPRESSLY provided the HHS exchanges authority to hand out tax credits to subsidize the premiums... the HELP bill having been presented less than 30 prior to the Finance committee bill. It's total BS to make such a claim!] To accept the challengers' argument about congressional intent, the proposition you have to accept is this: For over a year, as Congress debated the Affordable Care Act, and for a good while after it passed, hardly anyone—Republicans, Democrats, journalists, and budget analysts—really understood how it worked, even though Congress had spelled it out clearly. "There's just no way that we would have been having this conversation about excluding half the country from tax credits … but not have had the press, our opponents, and many in Congress screaming at the top of their lungs," Fontenot said. [No, the anticipated outcome was all States going along to get along with the multi-trillion dollar FREE MONEY giveaway. There was nothing for Rep's to argue about here until AFTER the IRS rewrote the law. Odd how this argument backfires if used to debate INTENT behind the Medicaid expansion!] That's why so many health care wonks have been so stupefied by this challenge. Because they were all there. They all lived through it. And this issue the Court will debate Wednesday just didn't come up at the time. [Total BS continued...] The Congressional Budget Office has said it never considered the possibility that subsidies might only be available in some states—and that no one ever asked it to score the law's costs under that assumption. Several states have said they were never told, while they were deciding whether to set up their own exchanges, that their decisions could deny financial assistance to their residents. Even Republicans assumed the subsidies would be available in every state. ["no one ever asked it (CBO) to score the law's costs under that assumption." asked...asked...asked... Those who asked for a score made the rules up for determining the score ...include ALL states!] In 2012, Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee produced a report arguing that CBO had underestimated Obamacare's costs. Accusing the budget office of "a colossal misstatement of reality," Republicans said the law would actually cost $2.6 trillion over its first decade. That figure would have been impossible to reach without the law's most expensive provision—its subsidies. [They used the same 'ALL states' assumption the CBO had to illustrate the variance.] And this was in June 2012, when it was clear that most states would not be setting up their own exchanges. Only 14 states had passed bills to establish exchanges at the time of the Budget Committee's report, and health care analysts were speculating in the press that fewer than 20 states would ultimately sign on.  Dipstick reporter! The IRS rule/law rewrite came 3/27/2012. The HHS did not even contract to build a tax credit calculator required for tax credits until 5/3/2012. The Rep's budget report was started before they changed the rules illegally.] Michael Cannon, the director of health policy at the libertarian Cato Institute, says it doesn't matter how many people assumed that subsidies were available in every state. "It doesn't matter what they say about what they enacted. It doesn't matter what they understood about what they enacted," he said. "Just because an assumption is widespread doesn't mean it's true." The challenge in King centers around a line in the statute that lays out the formula for calculating Obamacare's subsidies. It says the amount of each person's subsidy should be based on the time they were covered through "an Exchange established by the State." To Cannon, that means the subsidies are only available in state-based exchanges—and not in the 34 states that turned to the federal government to set up their marketplaces. The challengers have had a harder time, though, persuading courts that Congress meant to limit subsidies to state-run exchanges. They argue that Congress withheld subsidies from federally run exchanges so that states would have a powerful incentive to set up their own. State insurance markets could spin into total disarray if the court sides with the challengers in King, and the White House says Congress would not have set Obamacare up to fail. Sure it did, the challengers argue—the threat had to be big enough to light a fire under governors and state legislators. So, why didn't anyone recognize Congress was making such a dramatic bargain with states? No one noticed the "established by the State" language until months after the law had passed, and even Cannon initially thought it was just a glitch. Again, Cannon says, a lot of people being wrong doesn't make them any less wrong. "Republicans had not read the law either," Cannon said. [Rather selective 'balanced' reporting on what Cannon has to say in response to the BS. "...the White House says Congress would not have set Obamacare up to fail." Congress did NOT write the regulations that the insurance companies faced when they put together policies, which include cost estimates based on lots of FREE MONEY to pay the premiums through the IRS law rewrite.] Democratic aides say the "established by the State" language was included to differentiate government-supported exchanges from private marketplaces or purchasing systems set up by small organizations. Its purpose was to designate an exchange for each state through which subsidies would be available, said Fontenot and John McDonough, who worked on the law for the Senate HELP Committee. That would be the committee that assembled the unpassed bill which ...EXPRESSLY stated that the HHS exchange could provide tax credits to subsidize the premiums. I guess Fontenot conveniently forgot and McDonough must have been away on vacation.]"We understood 'established by the State' to throw in the federal exchanges," McDonough said. "That's what the lawyers told us." [Progressive mind set... State = Federal] If Congress wanted to set up an offer states couldn't refuse, it wouldn't have authorized a federal fallback at all, he said. The fallback was included because staff recognized that "no matter how much you push, there would be some states that just wouldn't be up to doing it," McDonough said. [Simple.... They could have passed the HELP bill if they were so certain they could, that it was the INTENT of all voting for it in Congress.] What staff say now doesn't matter, legally—the court's thinking is supposed to be confined to the text of the law and Congress' intent as it was expressed at the time. But this isn't like figuring out what the Founding Fathers meant when they wrote the Second Amendment. Everyone who wrote Obamacare is still around—and waiting for the Supreme Court to tell them what they had in mind.
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| kbp | Mar 4 2015, 01:16 PM Post #1697 |
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http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelcannon/2015/03/02/17-errors-omissions-in-voxs-otherwise-excellent-history-of-king-v-burwell/ 17 Errors & Omissions In Vox's Otherwise Excellent History Of King V. Burwell (Updated) [...] 6. Kliff quotes former Democratic staff director of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee John McDonough as saying, “There is not a scintilla of evidence that the Democratic lawmakers who designed the law intended to deny subsidies to any state.” That is flatly untrue. As even the government concedes, the Democratic senators on the HELP Committee—which McDonough ran—approved a bill that withheld Exchange subsidies in states that did not implement that bill. Kliff has quoted McDonough in the past making the same invalid point, and I have corrected her, to no avail. Kliff should have informed readers that McDonough himself helped the authors of the ACA do what he now says they never considered doing. Instead, she once again allowed McDonough to misrepresent the legislative history and what the ACA’s authors were considering. I did not recall McDonough's involvement at HELP. He must not have been on vacation, simply was a liar in his contribution to Baker's article cited in the previous post.] [...] 11. Kliff writes: “Congress always meant for residents of all 50 states to have access to financial help. It was never a question, during the five years I’ve spent writing about Obamacare, whether this would be the case.” Regarding the first claim, Congress also meant for residents of all 50 states to have access to the ACA’s Medicaid expansion. That doesn’t mean Congress didn’t intend to condition Medicaid subsidies on state cooperation.  Regarding the second claim, all that tells us is that journalists should ask more questions and/or members of Congress and congressional staff should read bills more closely. 12. Kliff writes, “For about two years, [Adler, Cannon,] and other challengers made a purely textualist argument.” Actually, it was less than one year before we learned the plain text of the statute reflected Congress’ intent. We wrote in July 2012: “We were both surprised to discover this flaw in the law, and characterized it as a ‘glitch.’ Yet our further research demonstrates this feature of the law was intentional and purposeful, and that the IRS’s rule has no basis in law. This supposed fix is actually an effort to rewrite the law and provide for something Congress never enacted, and indeed that PPACA’s authors intentionally chose not to include in the law.” [...] 17. Finally, Kliff writes that the government’s argument “has remained consistent throughout the process.” No, it hasn’t. When King v. Burwell reached the Supreme Court, the government unveiled a new argument: “The phrase “Exchange established by the State under Section [1311] is a term of art that includes an Exchange established for the State by HHS.” The government also called the phrase a “technical term” that “reflects style and grammar—not a substantive limitation” on the IRS’s power. The government had never previously called that phrase a “term of art.” The only statutory provision it had described as a term of art was the term “Exchange,” and the government described that as a “defined term of art” (emphasis added) because, unlike “Exchange established by the State,” the ACA actually bears a definition that gives the word “Exchange” a meaning other than its ordinary meaning. [Now ''by" means "for" ..."So let it be [re]written. So let it be done." Rameses ...and the Democrats!] [...] |
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| kbp | Mar 4 2015, 01:17 PM Post #1698 |
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The Vox piece referenced in the last post: http://www.vox.com/2015/3/2/8129539/king-burwell-history |
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| kbp | Mar 4 2015, 05:53 PM Post #1699 |
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Short spot on todays activities at SCOTUS: Carvin represents the plaintiff.  Kagan ignores how the Medicaid expansion was structured, along with the fact that nobody needed to worry about "reading the law in the way Mr. Carvin interpreted it for more than a year" ...because... ...it was not until TWO YEARS later when the IRS rewrote the law! . |
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| kbp | Mar 4 2015, 06:02 PM Post #1700 |
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http://www.nationaljournal.com/health-care/obamacare-challengers-have-good-feeling-after-scotus-arguments-20150304 Obamacare Challengers Have Good Feeling After SCOTUS Arguments The two men who masterminded the latest legal challenge that imperils Obamacare were feeling pretty good about their chances after Wednesday's oral arguments at the Supreme Court. Michael Cannon, a Cato Institute scholar, and Jonathan Adler, a Case Western University law professor, sat in on the hearing. "I'm optimistic because the two swing justices were very skeptical of the government's argument," Cannon said. Adler concurred. "I think we saw today is that the government's efforts to make this a textual case don't seem to be appealing to a majority of the Court," he said, "and that the sorts of arguments that could potentially support the government's position would pose grave risks to other federal programs." Chief Justice John Roberts didn't say much during Wednesday's hearing, and Justice Anthony Kennedy was tough on both sides. He did seem concerned about the federalism implications of a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs, saying during the argument that it would raise "a serious constitutional problem." Adler acknowledged is one of the most difficult issues for their side. But he countered that he didn't think the government wanted to win on those grounds because it would have uncertain implications beyond the Obamacare case. "If the court were to say that those conditions are coercive, then that would not really be a victory for the government. That would be a victory for limiting government," Cannon said. "Congress would not able to impose a lot of the burdens on states that it's now imposing. It would overturn Supreme Court precedents, and it would make a lot of federal programs vulnerable to challenge." As Adler put it: "It would in effect save this IRS rule at the expense of other programs." "I doubt the Court is willing to go that way," he said, "but if it were to go that direction, I don't think the federal government would consider that a long-term victory." Cannon and Adler really got the case rolling with a July 2012 brief arguing that the Internal Revenue Service had illegally authorized Obamacare's tax credits in the 30-plus states that use the HealthCare.gov website. And after many had initially dismissed their argument as a strained attempt to gut the law, they got their day in front of the highest court in the land. In the interim, they have been constant voices in support of the case in media and online and filed amicus briefs in support of the plaintiffs. The New Republic at one point dubbed Cannon "Obamacare's Single Most Relentless Antagonist." |
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| Baldo | Mar 4 2015, 06:13 PM Post #1701 |
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If we take the partisan issues aside and look strictly at the law then the IRS violated the statute as written. IMHO this case is more important that just the survival of Obamacare. Its issue goes much deeper. We have Congress to decide political issues and they make compromises to pass bills. They have a strategy & a purpose. Gruber admitted it was written to force States to set up exchanges. That strategy didn't work as States realized they will be on the hook for Obamacare after a few years. If SCOTUS allows this statute to be interpreted to cover up for strategy & purpose in getting a law passed why even have SCOTUS at all. We need SCOTUS to actually do there job, not be a political body to cover up for the failure of the legislative & executive branch. |
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| kbp | Mar 4 2015, 06:56 PM Post #1702 |
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brianne-j-gorod/justice-kennedy-gave-us-a_b_6802112.html A good read in a column by a pro-Ocare source. Basically, she feels that in order for the court to UNREAD the plain text, they may decide the outcome of reading it shows the law to be unconstitutional (harms people and states...). The largest issue supporting that theory come from the insurance market being subject to regulations written by HHS after Congress was done! |
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| kbp | Mar 4 2015, 07:04 PM Post #1703 |
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| kbp | Mar 4 2015, 07:13 PM Post #1704 |
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http://dailysignal.com/2015/03/04/supreme-court-heard-king-v-burwell-heres-justices-asked-commented/ The Supreme Court Heard King v. Burwell. Here’s What the Justices Asked About and Commented On [...] Mike Carvin, the lawyer representing the challengers, gave a tour de force performance under heavy siege by the liberal justices on the Court. They almost immediately sought to divert attention away from the plain language of the statute, which is unambiguously in conflict with the position taken by the IRS and the administration, by asking questions about the supposedly dire consequences that could ensue if the Court rules against the government. Of course, this is a policy issue that should have nothing to do with the legal question at issue. As Carvin said in his very first words at the podium, “This is a straightforward case of statutory construction where the plain language of the statute dictates the result.” Right out of the gate, however, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg raised an issue that has been in the news recently but which had not even been mentioned or raised in the Justice Department’s brief. Early last month, a number of left-wing outlets began to argue that the plaintiffs did not have standing to challenge the IRS rule because they had not suffered any injury. Carvin dismissed this as an issue, but Solicitor General Donald Verrilli appeared to vacillate. On the one hand, he did not want to concede an argument that might help the government win. On the other hand, it would be difficult to contest standing at this point due to the factual finding of standing by the lower court and the fact that the government had not raised the issue before the Supreme Court. Two interesting lines of argument came up today. First, Justice Sonia Sotomayor unveiled a somewhat bizarre constitutional avoidance argument that did not make it into the briefs of either party. She claimed that if the tax credits were unavailable in the states with federal exchanges, this would be unconstitutionally “coercive” of traditional state authority by politically forcing them to set up exchanges. She used the popular phrase “death spiral” to describe what would happen to state insurance markets if the challengers won. Surprisingly, this argument appeared to appeal to Justice Anthony Kennedy, one of the purported swing votes in this case (the other being the chief justice). Of course, the problem with this argument is that prior cases involving coercion of states by the federal government have involved programs where state governments would lose federal dollars if they did not comply with federal requirements. But here, there are no federal dollars going to state governments that can be used to “coerce” their behavior – the federal tax credits are payable to individuals. [The "death spiral" would be the result of regulations added by HHS, otherwise the market would return to pre-Obamacare status. That's keeping a rewriting of the law in order to overcome other portions of the law!] Justice Elena Kagan also posed an odd hypothetical in which she tried to compare the problem of state exchanges vs. federal exchanges and federal tax credits to her assigning the writing and editing of a legal memo to her three law clerks, when one of them is unable to complete the assignment. Her point seemed to be that it would not matter who ended up doing the work and that was comparable to it not being important for purposes of Obamacare subsidies whether the state or the federal government set up the exchange. [It's okay for departments and agencies to rewrite laws that didn't work out as some would like them to have?] Carvin gamely answered the hypothetical, noting that while Justice Kagan may be indifferent as to who writes the brief, Congress was not indifferent as to who set up the exchanges when it drafted the Obamacare statute. Justice Samuel Alito noted that it certainly would matter to him to know which of the law clerks wrote a brief. He would not assume “it was written by Will, because Amanda stepped into Will’s shoes” and wrote it for Will. In general, there was a great deal of discussion over an hour and a half about the language of the specific provision on exchanges, whether the text should be interpreted differently based on the overall structure of the statute, and on the possible effect on the insurance market and individuals of a finding that no tax credits can be provided through the federal exchange. The courtroom was packed with a who’s who of Washington insiders listening to the spirited debate, from Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, to Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Ne., to former Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius. How the Court will rule is anyone’s guess, but we will likely hear one way or another by the end of June, when the Supreme Court’s current term ends. |
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| kbp | Mar 4 2015, 07:53 PM Post #1705 |
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http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121217/king-v-burwell-oral-arguments-begin-obamacare-challenge Can anyone paste this? I'm having some strange problems with this website. |
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| abb | Mar 4 2015, 08:11 PM Post #1706 |
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March 4, 2015 Anthony Kennedy Hinted at How to Save Obamacare—But Will the Supreme Court Listen? By Brian Beutler @brianbeutler Attempting to divine outcomes from Supreme Court oral arguments is a foolish endeavor. But in a promising sign for supporters of the Affordable Care Act, one of the Court’s conservative justices—Anthony Kennedy—traced a path along which he could find for the government in King v. Burwell, and uphold health insurance subsidies in 34 states. “There’s something very powerful to the point that if your argument is accepted … [it's hard to see how] this is not coercion,” Kennedy said to the plaintiffs’ attorney, Michael Carvin. “Court and counsel for both sides should confront the proposition that your argument creates a serious constitutional question.” Kennedy’s point was that reading the ACA to condition subsidies on states establishing their own exchanges, and to impose an unworkable regulatory framework—a insurance market “death spiral”—on states that do not comply, might be unconstitutional. He compared it to the idea of coercing states to build highways by threatening to impose a 35 mile per hour speed limit if they refuse. “We wouldn't allow that,” he said. Kennedy didn't fully close the door on simply deeming the law unconstitutional once again, as he did in 2012. But In a later exchange with the government’s advocate, Solicitor General Don Verrilli, Kennedy suggested sua sponte that "if Petitioners' argument is correct, this is just not a rational choice for the States to make and that they're being coerced. And that you then have to invoke the standard of constitutional avoidance.” Verrilli affirmed this suggestion: “Constitutional avoidance becomes a very powerful reason to read the statute our way.” Back in November, I argued that Chief Justice John Roberts could treat this case with the same dexterity he used to uphold Obamacare in 2012 by citing constitutional concerns with the challengers’ interpretation of the law. Kennedy, not Roberts, raised those very concerns. At a separate point, Kennedy told Carvin, “It may well be that you're correct as to these words, and there's nothing we can do.” So it’s unclear precisely which direction his coercion concerns cut, or whether they’re strong enough to overwhelm his inclination to vouchsafe the challengers’ textual argument. But his explicit suggestion that the challengers have proposed an unconstitutional reading of the statute, and his apparent aversion to trespassing into thorny constitutional territory, is crucial to the law’s survival as implemented. The four liberal justices hounded Carvin for 40 minutes, with occasionally incredulous questions, suggesting that they are disposed to upholding the subsidies in states that didn’t set up their own exchanges. Justice Elena Kagan derided the "never-ending saga" of Obamacare litigation. But they will need a fifth member to carry the day. As is his custom, Justice Clarence Thomas asked no questions, and Roberts was unusually silent as well, betraying no hint, as he did in 2012, of his leanings in this case. Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito once again had their knives out for Obamacare. The two men peppered Verrilli with skeptical questions, and bailed Carvin out multiple times when he ran up against tough questioning from liberal justices. Both sought to defuse the concerns Kennedy raised—Alito by suggesting states might respond to a ruling for the plaintiffs by setting up their own exchanges, Scalia by suggesting Congress might step in. “You really Congress is just going to sit there while all these disastrous consequences ensue,” Scalia asked. “This Congress?!” Verrilli responded, to laughter. Scalia likewise invoked the argument, common in conservative media, that the ACA drafters imposed conditions on the subsidies to secure a crucial vote from then-Senator Ben Nelson. Verrilli dispensed with that argument, saying “there is objective proof that that is not true.” Not discouraged, Scalia insisted that even "if the only reasonable interpretation of a particular provision produces consequences" it's not for the Court to "twist words as necessary" to make sense of the law. "That can't be the rule." The Court and attorneys seemed to resolve the question of standing, suggesting that the justices will decide the case on the merits. In an inconsequential but revealing and humorous moment, Carvin argued for a client’s standing by referring sarcastically to “the usual clarity of the IRS code.” His entire case is premised on the notion that a section of the IRS code is clear and unambiguous and does not allow subsidies in states that haven’t established their own exchanges. |
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| foxglove | Mar 4 2015, 09:27 PM Post #1707 |
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Jonathan Gruber made it clear that the intent of the law was to get the states to set up the exchanges and not giving their citizens tax credits was the means to do it. http://cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/jonathan-gruber-no-obamacare-subsidies-states-dont-set-exchanges "... In petitioning the Supreme Court to take their case, the plaintiffs quoted Gruber, who said in 2012: "f you're a state and you don’t set up an Exchange, that means your citizens don’t get their tax credits. … I hope 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, and that they’ll do it.” " ************************************************ Why states decided not to form exchanges: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/many-states-not-prepared-for-health-care-law/2012/10/01/4e1cced4-0c07-11e2-bb5e-492c0d30bff6_story.html http://healthblog.ncpa.org/should-the-states-set-up-obamacare-exchanges/ "Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), state governments are expected to set up health insurance exchanges through which individuals will buy their own health insurance, in many cases with substantial subsidies. Should the states comply? In the following point-counterpoint discussion, Linda Gorman and I give opposing answers to this important question. Leave your thoughts in the comments. John Goodman: Yes If the states abdicate their responsibilities under PPACA, the federal government will step in and act in lieu of the state. Under this scenario, states will relinquish all power to make a bad law better. Letting the federal government implement reform almost guarantees bad outcomes. Linda Gorman: No Exchanges are required to perform a variety of duties beyond distributing ObamaCare subsidies, and these duties are likely to add significantly to estimated costs. Some of them will damage a state’s business climate by creating new opportunities for crony capitalism. Some require that currently fashionable, but poorly tested, models be forced on health care providers. Some require that state exchanges have expertise equal to private insurers. Others force states to increase the cost of health insurance for people who currently have coverage. Later in the article: "... This will not really control costs but it will limit the size of the subsidies the federal government has to pay. In the process it will force health plans to ration care..." A commenter: Kenneth A. Fisher, M.D. says: May 23, 2012 at 9:41 am HHS documentation states: Each State electing to establish an Exchange must adopt the Federal standards contained in this law and in this proposed rule, or have in effect a State law or regulation that implements these Federal standards. Section 1311(k) further specifies that Exchanges may not establish rules that conflict with or prevent the application of regulations promulgated by the Secretary.” http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2011-07-15/pdf/2011-17610.pdf Thus the Secretary of HHS is in reality the czar of a state’s exchange and each succeeding secretary can change the exchange at will. This is nothing more than a power grab by the large insurers to work their will through the secretary. This is a bad idea no matter how one tries to excuse it! http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/meet-the-senator-who-thinks-hes-solved-the-gops-obamacare-dilemma/article/2560819#! Meet the senator who thinks he's solved the GOP's Obamacare dilemma http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/ted-cruz-leads-latest-gop-alternative-to-obamacare/article/2561019 (Bold emphasis is mine). Edited by foxglove, Mar 4 2015, 09:30 PM.
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| wingedwheel | Mar 4 2015, 11:01 PM Post #1708 |
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Think they had a good feeling last time around too. But the law and the constitution doesn't matter. How well you present your augments don't matter. Verrilli was the brunt of many jokes. But Roberts saved 0bama. And he will likely do it again. That is if Kennedy doesn't beat him to the punch. |
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| wingedwheel | Mar 4 2015, 11:03 PM Post #1709 |
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The law harms businesses and people paying their own insurance if left in place. |
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| LTC8K6 | Mar 5 2015, 06:27 AM Post #1710 |
Assistant to The Devil Himself
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I think it's foolish to think this SC will do anything about Obamacare. Obamacare is here to stay. Massive government programs, once started, are just about impossible to kill. It will be a giant money hole, just like other programs before it. That does not matter with government programs. If it were a private program, it would quickly collapse under it's own weight and losses. If Obamacare is stopped, then we will have witnessed a miracle, imo. |
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