I admire the tenacity of republicans

I really do. I don’t agree with their agenda, but they don’t give up. They are the opposite of democrats who give up the second anyone hints at disapproval.

Since the ACA has held up under the SCOTUS, now the right wants to destroy the subsidy system holding the ACA up. This could result in the end of subsidies for 5 million plus people in states where the states chose not to set up their own exchanges, but instead relied on the federal gov. to create them.

I get the impression 5 million people getting about $3000 a year in subsidies could be affected. That works out to about 15 billion a year. Not a small amount, but considering that it is helping people buy health insurance (and considering the amount that that money would largely just be transferred to higher premiums and taxes to cover those people when they go to the ER) its not huge either. I wonder what the actual net cost of that 15 billion is when you factor in how the costs will just come in different forms if they lose insurance.

The same thing happened when the GOP talked about raising the medicare age to 67. When it was calculated out, it cost more to do that than just leave the age at 65. This chart is from a liberal site, so I’m sure it is biased. But the fact remains, you don’t just ‘save’ money by cutting health care. That money has to come from somewhere else, and it’ll come from higher taxes and higher premiums to cover those people sooner or later.

http://www.cbpp.org/images/cms//8-23-11health-f1.jpg

The worst part will be all the people celebrating if the right wins. All the people celebrating that 5 million people will lose access to affordable health coverage. Do large numbers of people in other wealthy countries celebrate when millions lose access to affordable health care?

This OP seems to say, “This lawsuit will hamper the ACA, and the ACA is a good thing; therefore the lawsuit is a bad thing.”

It does not offer any opinion at all on the merits of the lawsuit’s claims.

Well, because recently my workplace decided to stop full time positions I got stuck in a part time situation and the ACA does help me, sorry if you think me and all those people it is helping will just accept that there is no merit at all.

So have they forgotten their aim or just redoubled their effort?

Not every political issue boils down to what a judge thinks about something.

This post seems to say, “This OP makes a personal judgement, not a legal one.”

It does not offer any opinion at all on the merits of the lawsuit, legally or otherwise.

The lawsuit, oddly enough, does not claim, “There is no merit to the ACA.”

I said, “It [the OP] does not offer any opinion at all on the merits of the lawsuit’s claims.”

Your post similarly doesn’t discuss the merits of the lawsuit’s claims.

Instead, you discuss the merits of the ACA itself.

Yes, that’s exactly what it says.

“I personally like the ACA, therefore I am against this lawsuit.”

Well, this is a lawsuit. Doesn’t it seem likely that a judge’s opinion is going to come into play at some point?

So the point of your post was to simply restate the OP? Alright. Seems a little redundant.

Well, the implication I made is that there is very little merit IMHO.

This was a law that the Republican Governors decided to implement at their discretion. They are within their rights; however, this lawsuit would not had been possible if all the governors had done the recommended thing. It seems to me that there is no merit on giving to the Republicans a victory based on what they did on purpose to undermine the law.

It feels like the metaphor of the moving of the goal posts and expecting that it will be ok for the ref to let the field goal take place after the goal post was moved to the nosebleed section.

How can you undermine a law by doing what it explicitly allows?

This looks like sloppy legislating. Surely they knew that some states would not set up exchanges. No?

My purpose was to highlight the lack of argument against the claims made in the lawsuit.

The OP did not make any such claims, and I though it was valuable to draw attention to that lack.

So… the courts should say… what? “Yes, we admit the law doesn’t allow subsidies unless the exchange was established by a state, but that’s only because the Republican governors did not let their states set up exchanges, so we’re going to let it slide?”

Can’t let his go, as it’s an oft repeated fiction around here. The SCOTUS upheld the individual mandate in the ACA. They did not uphold “the ACA”. There are many (hundreds? thousands?) of provisions in the ACA. The individual mandate was one of those provisions.

You didn’t either. Is it valuable of me to have pointed out your lack of of argument against the claims made in the lawsuit by you? If so, why?

No doubt the lawyers in this case will wear clothing when they argue this case. Yet the OP didn’t speak about sartorial matters at all. Is there worth in pointing that out?

Well, the ACA doesn’t say it that way. It doesn’t say the subsidies can’t be give unless the exchange was established by a state. I think an argument can be made that the feds setting up exchanges are doing so in lieu of the states, and are effectively acting on the part of those states not setting up exchanges.

Bricker isn’t the OP. I think the OP of a pit thread owes us more than “This is bad”. Don’t you? If he offers us only that, this being the pit and all, he should expect an e-lashing.

Red herring, IMHO the intention of the law was undermined by the efforts of the Republicans, they should say “yes, we admit the ones making the law expected that if the states did not follow that then the federal government would take over, this lawsuit is just making a technicality into an item that affects the law.”

Not really. I’m just happy that it has good grammar. That’s why I don’t start Pit threads.

That said, I think the OP does offer more than that. It’s “This is bad; here are the reasons I think this is bad; here are some stats and cites to try and show that my reasons are valid.” In Pit thread terms, I give it a solid B.

Why should it? There are plenty of laws and rulings that pass the legal sniff test that happen to by really fucking bad. I don’t think the OP particularly cares about the legal nitty-gritty of the lawsuit; he cares that Republicans are being partisan shitheads aiming to dismantle the law of the land one nitpick at a time, and doing so in such a way to cause as much damage as humanly possible. I mean, a responsible minority would recognize “this isn’t going anywhere, our best hope is to try to reform it”. Obviously, we’re not dealing with a responsible minority, we’re dealing with a pack of moronic thugs whose sole policy goal seems to be “ruin the country so we can blame Obama”. Now, you’re free to defend their actions, but I’m going to call you a shithead for doing so. You want to start a thread over whether or not this is legal? Knock yourself out. This thread is about how shitty republicans are for deciding to run the lawsuit either way.