Who gets blamed at this point? Who is most likely to get blamed? What are the further political implications? More importantly, what are the practical effects on people’s lives? Do we return entirely to the pre-ACA status quo? If so, what happens if/when the costs of health care and insurance increase even further? Will anything be done, given the failure?
Can you quote the part of the article that makes that claim? And just to be clear, these guys are not “at” the NEJoM, they are 3 guys who published an article in that journal.
One of the things that’s important to remember here is that - in spite of all the giddy conservatives & panicky liberals - the argument in this case still hugely favors the government’s position. It would be truly unprecedented if SCOTUS actually rules for the plaintiffs in King given the mounds of evidence that cuts to the side of the administration, not to mention decades of prior SCOTUS precedent that would be instantly uprooted in the event of an activist decision. Hell, even the 2012 SCOTUS dissent recognized the legitimacy of the federal subsidies, so the Court striking them now would ring enormously hypocritical. The only thing that the plaintiffs have in their favor are the Gruber videos - which were also taken out of context - and even they aren’t legally relevant because Gruber has never been a member of Congress.
As to what would happen if it does side with the plaintiffs, well, the only accurate word would be chaos. In terms of the Court itself, it’s legitimacy would be entirely destroyed; as in, say, it’ll no longer be considered a neutral arbiter of the law & constitution, but rather a mere judicial tool of the Republican Party.
For the ACA, it’d be pretty straightforward: HC.Gov would lose the ability to hand out subsidies while state-based marketplaces (such as mine at Covered CA) would be entirely unaffected. Tons of people would drop their insurance, premiums would rise, & the markets in those states would become entirely dysfunctional. The question, really, is whether SCOTUS would introduce a severability clause into its ruling, making it so that the ACA would no longer apply at all to states using HC.Gov. Effectively, then, the ACA would continue apace in welcoming states even as the pre-ACA shitfuck status-quo returned to the rest of the country.
The Obama administration would scramble like Hell to salvage as much of the law as possible, but, as that article in the OP points out, any actions it takes would be legally tenuous at best. A handful of states (think New Jersey or Michigan) will probably rush to establish their own marketplaces, but there will still be a considerable length of time before they’d be operable & subsidies returned to state residents. At that point, there might be a push in Congress to fix this issue - after all, King could become a moot point entirely in five minutes if Congress approved an additional sentence to the ACA - but neither the administration nor Congressional Dems would have much reason to go along with that. The GOP would be negotiating entirely in bad faith, and the kinds of concessions that they’d demand would be so damn onerous to the administration that it would never agree to them anyway.
So yeah, a giant clusterfuck would be the likely result.
It was pretty much unprecedented for them even to grant cert, so don’t put it past them.
Isn’t that largely the case already? It may be that Roberts sees and understands that, and puts his loyalty more toward his court and his place in history than with his party, but it isn’t yet clear that he does.
Along with a bunch of partisan crowing about how this proves health care can’t possibly work in the US, despite the best efforts of the Kenyan Muslim and his socialist henchmen, etc.
That’s a disingenuous argument. SCOTUS ruled that the subsidies were not a tax, instead of ruling on whether they were statutorily permitted. The court didn’t find the ACA constitutional–rather, it found it not unconstitutional solely under the one line of reasoning presented to it.
Normally, SCOTUS gets interested in a case if two different circuit courts have issued conflicting decisions. Then SCOTUS will be more likely to step in and sort things out.
In this case, the Fourth Circuit and the D.C. Court of Appeals issued conflicting decisions. So far, so [del]good[/del] whatever. Then the full panel of the D.C. Court vacated its decision, deciding to re-hear the case en banc but they haven’t done so yet. That is where it stands. So we don’t have extant conflicting decisions at the moment. That is why it is questionable that SCOTUS has agreed to hear the case at this time.
What would stop Obama from using “prosecutorial discretion” to not prosecute taxpayers who pay $X-$Y in income taxes (where X equals their tax bill, and Y is the amount of the subsidy they would have received)?
The IRS already uses a lot of discretion, such as making deals with people to obtain part of what they owe, rather than taking them to court or seizing their property. The President could advise the IRS to “go easy on people,” perhaps granting an extension, etc.
If it’s too obviously political, Congress can take away the IRS’ discretion, but that would be a bad thing. Imagine if they were compelled to use the harshest methods of collection in every case. A lot of pretty good people would lose their homes.
I’m wondering if it’s “pretty much unprecedented” or “unprecedented”. If the latter, then why the qualification? If not the latter, then it is precedented.
That, yes, but mainly in that the legal argument they’ve agreed to hear is so pitiful. It is rare, hence the words “pretty much” :rolleyes: for them to be so obvious.
I’m saying he could be explicit. Just like he has done with marijuana and immigration. Come right out and say, “If you are enrolled in a federal exchange, we will not prosecute you, take any civil collection action, or keep records showing you as delinquent for only paying $X-$Y in income taxes.”
Personally, no, I don’t, but publicly, that’s the image that the Court strives to maintain. Hell, even though its perception has deteriorated in recent years (along with the rest of every other branch of government), that public perception is one of the reasons why SCOTUS is still the highest regarded aspect of the US government. Like it or not, the Justices are supposed to be above the political crises of the given day - hence their lifetime appointments - so whenever they delve into a blatantly political argument their motives are bound to be suspect.
And that’s where this case can certifiably destroy the Court’s public image. The arguments in favor of the plaintiffs are just so monumentally weak that (as Elvis indicated) it’s downright bizarre that the Court agreed to hear the case at all; it’s especially suspicious, then, because there was no circuit split which would have compelled SCOTUS’s decision in normal times.
Conservatives are basically begging the Court to be activist at this point. Most of them aren’t even hiding it anymore. If SCOTUS rules against the government here, then it’ll essentially be another political operative of the GOP. In all likelihood, that idea terrifies John Roberts, especially given his “balls & strikes” pledge that got him confirmed in the first place.