My guess: the Republicans will offer to fix the issue as part of a broader reform of the ACA.
(BTW, it’s not just the subsidies that are at state, because the employer mandate is tied to the subsidies.)
Yes
A number of states, headed by Virginia I believe, filed a brief before the DC Circuit claiming they weren’t properly informed and that affected their decision as to whether or not to establish their own exchange. Just because some states still would not have done it wouldn’t matter as long as there is at least one state out there that believes they were mislead by the federal government - but that’s only if you buy the plaintiff’s argument that the language in the tax code constitutes a threat to the states (or “incentive” as they euphemistically call it).
Well, such a scenario could only play out if you were to buy the plaintiff’s interpretation as the only correct one. If you believe the IRS’s reading to be plausible there is nothing unconstitutional because there is no threat.
That’s easy, they want to take the law down however they can and at whatever cost, not just in red states but everywhere. All they have to do is get some big red states to say no and the “death spiral” starts as insurance companies will be forced to up their rates nationwide.
That’s another element of this fiasco which is bugging the Hell out of me.
At this point, conservative op-eds are basically going around haphazardly flouting the 2008 McCain/Palin health plan as a possible “fix,” as if the 2008 election never happened. All of it doesn’t mean anything in any conceivable way, though, because the Pubs in Congress have no intention of ever addressing health care as an issue. Rather, it’s just a sideshow meant to influence SCOTUS.
And it makes me want to tear out my fucking hair.
I’m surprised by rational thinkers who suggest that right-wing opinion makers have a sincere end-game in mind, an intentional path to common welfare.
Most ordinary Republiopaths vote in response to inchoate rage; whether they vote at all depends more on the level of screeching at FoxNews than on economic conditions. Republiopathic leaders depend on that rage; the last thing they want is to solve the problems of their voters. When they control the White House and both Houses of Congress, they’ll be stealing with both hands and still finding ways to blame the “liberals.”
Shouldn’t you be out on a ledge somewhere?
This suggests that the electorate resoundingly endorsed the ACA over other alternatives. And they did – but the version they endorsed had features like “if you like your health plan, you can keep it.” Now that the lie is plain, you can no longer hold up prior electorate approval as evidence of support.
My view is that paid health care should not be considered a responsibility of government to supply.
I’d like to see the country return to that view.
Somebody should be thinking of putting together a pamphlet or factsheet, something that will explain the abstract legistics in terms a layman might be able to grasp. For the sake of the thousands of low-level civil servants who will have to answer the phones, field calls from terrified people. Those phones will be ringing for days. Weeks.
Explain to them why their health care is gone, outline for them the significant legal issues involved. So that they may understand that they are being screwed for a very important issue of the law. Might take some comfort in that. I doubt it. But they might.
Perhaps the pamphlet could be replaced by a slip of paper that says, “You have no right to demand that other people pay your bills.”
Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?
In Brickotopia, schoolchildren have no right to their catsup, the poor have no right to their food stamps, old have no right to their Social Security, and Bricker himself has no right, as a pedestrian using a crosswalk, to expect me to slow down.
In Brickotopia, people take what they want with guns (though cowards use concealed carry so they can get the jump on their fellow predators).
It’s like you’re not even trying anymore.
The lawsuits against the ADA do not “have merit” as they have been soundly rejected by a vast majority of courts, including the supreme political court of the land. The minority of cases that have struck down the constitutionality of the ACA are written by morons. There is the possibility that the USSC will strike down the ACA, in whole or in part, on some new suit, but the supreme court is a political body and we already know how the majority feels about the ACA being “constitutional”. The state exchange argument is far weaker than the previously upheld mandate argument, and I see it as 6-3 or more in upholding the law.
The state exchange argument is weak because the states can and do opt out.
And no way is Roberts going to hurt insurance companies by undoing this law. He is at least as committed to corporate rule in this country as Mrs. Sandusky is to her Jerry.
To the first point: Yes. You. Can. BECAUSE OBAMA WAS FUCKING REELECTED.
To the second point: This is why there is largely no point in arguing about the ACA with conservatives at all, and I appreciate that your candor has allowed it to come to the forefront. The GOP DOES NOT believe that the government should provide UHC - the experiences of the rest of the civilized world be damned - & NO AMOUNT of demonstrable, verifiable evidence that the ACA is a wildly successful policy will EVER convince you of that. Your stupid prejudices are far too entrenched.
But again, there really was a 2008 election, and McCain got his ass handed to him. So seriously, don’t go around parroting that the electorate didn’t vote for the ACA in '08, especially when that same electorate reaffirmed it by reelecting Obama in '12 by a landslide.
Cut. The. Crap.
Both the argument to which you are responding and this counter-argument are stupid. An election only validates the legitimacy of a policy in some formal abstract sense having to do with the democratic process–it isn’t an actual test of how people feel about a particular policy. The election either validated the policy because that’s how our formal structure of elections work, or almost no policies are truly validated by elections because in actuality people vote for all kinds of reasons with huge amounts of ignorance about particular policies.
You may want to abolish the ACA and the VA and Medicare, but most Americans don’t agree with you. I don’t know why you should care that most Americans don’t agree with you, but the way to assess that would be polling about repealing those policies and not half-assed appeals to election results.
On what planet is 51.1% a landslide?
Errrr…mandate.
It seems to me that most Americans now favor repealing the ACA, don’t they?
ETA: or at least more Americans favor putting on hold pending the outcome of the court challenges than oppose that idea: Voters Favor Putting Health Care Law On Hold Until Court Challenges End - Rasmussen Reports®
I’m not aware of any independent poll saying that a majority favors repeal, and lots showing the opposite. As with all things about which people lack knowledge or deeply felt convictions, it depends a lot on how you ask.
My company’s insurance plan would require me to pay about 8.8% of my gross income for the most basic insurance coverage. That’s too much, and I chose no insurance for 2013, and I will pay the penalty instead. I have no problem with paying for healthcare, but I simply can’t afford that much. The ACA, as it stands, is unfairly penalizing the working poor and lower middle class, IMHO.
Therefore, I simply have no interest in all the arcane legal bullshit. I mainly only need catastrophic coverage anyway, plus a plan with, say, a flat $50 copay anyway (for extremely occasional small issues). I don’t want an expensive plan with a low deductible with good prescription coverage.
Why is it necessary to force something like that on the working poor and lower middle class, many of whom are young and in good health anyway? The ACA solved NOTHING for families like mine.
What does it mean to “put on hold” the ACA? I can imagine people having all sorts of ideas about what that means. And putting it on hold until all legal challenges are done simply means people will continue to challenge it indefinitely. That, to me, looks like a polling question in search of a specific answer, but an answer that really doesn’t mean anything.