I’m not so sure of this. Even the 4th Circuit, while ruling that people on the federal exchange could get subsidies, said that the intent of the law is unclear.
That is why I said “even” I meant that was a big if. I agree that it is more likely that by then the SC will not even give the time of the day to the plaintiffs.
The intention is what counts, IIUC the unclear part is related to the wording. What I think here is that if you are correct then we did not need a judgement that was in favor of the government. Clearly something was decided, and that something was that unclear wording does not mean that we have to ignore the intention of the law.
Let the Fourth Circuit’s ruling explain it:
That is my point. Even the 4th Circuit seems confused concerning the intent:
Sounds like the people that were told if they liked their insurance they could keep it.
And what party won?
Indeed, as the 4th circuit said:
Daring to look at the rationale in the DC panel’s ruling…
Both majority and dissenting opinions fashion part of their argument around the so called “three-legged stool” that is the PPACA. Those legs are 1)the “guarantee issue” along with the " community rating" requirements; 2)individual mandate; and 3)premium subsidies.
The theory is if you remove any one leg then the stool collapses. Guaranteed issue and Community rating without subsides makes insurance unaffordable. People will not buy that which they have no money for. Guaranteed issue and Community rating without an individual mandate means allow people to opt out, dooming the insurance market to adverse selection and a premium death spiral. And an Individual mandate with premium subsides in the absence of Guaranteed issue and Community rating requirements fails to deliver on expanding health insurance to the sickest who are most in need.
The government argues that the law doesn’t make sense without all three legs and ruling in the appellant’s favor would remove the premium subsidy leg for many people.
The appellant argues that, as dumb as it might be, removing a leg from the stool is exactly what the PPACA did with respect to two areas*, health insurance in the territories and a long term care program known as CLASS. Congress didn’t seem to mind. And they argue that is what Congress intended with regards to Exchanges.
The majority opinion notes the actions that Congress took with regards to the secondary markets of the territories and the CLASS Act. Further they note that when the CLASS Act program was deemed unworkable the remedy was a legislative one.
The dissent argues that it is inconceivable that Congress might have meant to pull the premium subsidy leg out from under the insurances markets in states which operate on the federal exchange because… well… Congress knew what they were doing when they screwed over the territories and they wouldn’t have meant to do that to the States because that’s what they said. Really. Pinky swear.
The dissent’s argument drops the ball there. Congress knew what they were doing except when they didn’t and thus federal exchanges really are state exchanges because Congress knew what they were doing because it’s not what they explicitly said.
*The PPACA, as it applies to the territories such as the Northern Marianas Islands and Guam, requires Guaranteed Issue and Community Rating but offers no Individual Mandate or Premium Subsidy. Two of the legs of the stool are missing.
The PPACA also included a long term care insurance program known as the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act. Again it included Guaranteed Issue and Community Rating but offered no Individual mandate or Premium Subsidy. CLASS was, in short, a mess and was repealed by an act of Congress as financially nonviable.
They didn’t seem to win on “intent”. I’m no lawyer but the passage you quote seems to be opinion of a judge concerning the intent of the plaintiffs…not the intent of congress WRT the specific sentence under review.
To nitpick on an important principle somewhat off the topic of this thread: that statement is absolutely false as a general principle. However, for community rating to work there has to be pretty much universal participation, which is the entire basis of single-payer. And if you have universal participation with community rating then you have a level playing field in which it’s possible to regulate provider costs. Put those things together and insurance is not only “affordable”, it can come close to cutting costs in half.
Those things I agree with. It’s a delicate and immensely convoluted dance in which the goal is to provide affordable near-universal health care coverage using an existing system of competitive free-market insurance carriers. The trouble is that while “competitive free market” are words that will warm the heart of any conservative, that concept and “universal affordable health care coverage” are so diametrically and fundamentally at odds that it’s an almost insurmountable challenge to make this work. A truly revolutionary advance could have been a properly implemented “public option” as originally proposed, but the insurance industry correctly saw this for what it was: huge potential cost-saver for the public, and hence a dire threat to their own revenue streams and profitability. So it was quickly and determinedly killed.
The dissent got this one right. Using the plain text of the law makes the whole scheme an absurdity. Did Congress really intend for federal exchanges to pass on and report “0” for millions of people in the subsidy field?
It’s a terribly drafted law, but the government’s position is more sensible.
The argument even from the dissent was that if you impose Guaranteed Issue and a Community Rating then the sickest would sign up but many policies would be “unaffordable” according to the standards of affordability in the Act (8% of income). The healthy poor would not buy a policy they could not afford. The sickest would prioritize insurance leading to them being more likely to retain coverage.
That leaves a pool which has been hit by adverse selection leading to 1) premiums rising to cover higher than expected claims cost leading to; 2) the poorest healthy people dropping out. Repeat 1 & 2 unit death spiral.
I agree that near universal participation is needed to make it all work, thus the Mandate and Premium Subsidies. But with income disparities such as they are that is not achievable without subsidies. Something about a Stone and Blood.
Grasping at straws, the government and the Democrats that worked on the law filed briefs explaining the intent, those were taken into account.
I think it’s commendable that you reached this position after originally being on the other side of it (particularly since the other side is more consistent with your political views.) I encourage everyone who hasn’t to review the original thread (also linked above) because it frankly offers a much more open discussion of the issue than either opinion that was released today. And hat tip to Richard Parker, who won that thread and not incidentally convinced me off a bit of a fence.
What straws? Read the quote I posted from the decision. They believe the defendant made a better case but admit that intent is not clear. I don’t have a position on the intent of Congress so you can drop the “grasping at straws” nonsense. If that sentence was an oversight then the defendants should win. If Congress was attempting to use subsidies as a carrot for states to set up subsidies then the plaintiffs should win.
I wonder if in clarifying this matter the SCOTUS might have to settle some dispute about when and how the context of a law may/should be taken into account. As it stands there are apparently some disagreements in the lower courts on the matter as alluded to in the majority opinion.
Both the majority and the dissent seem to agree that they should start with a determination of whether the language of the statute is unambiguous. But they diverge in opinion as to how much courts should look at legislative intent and overall context.
(Citations omitted by me)
Clarifying what path to take in analyzing the language of laws could lead to a SCOTUS decision far more reaching than just this case.
Well, not really. It’s not so much that the text is ambiguous. It’s that it’s susceptible to differing interpretations depending on how you read it. If you look solely at the offending section then it unambiguously does not allow subsidies to federally created exchanges. If you look at the Act as a whole (which the canons of construction require the court to) it unambiguously does.
I’m sorry but the conclusion, and from other judgements, was that if the government intent was not clear in the law the intention was clear elsewhere and including items that were also in the law. The point is that the government did not lose and the court did go for the intention that the makers of the law had.
Could be. What do you think of the millions of voters who lost their insurance or were forced to change them because of Obamacare?
We do? Could you point me towards that thread? Because I’m looking for allies on my “screw the poor” platform.