So - what happens if these lawsuits succeed?

Two lawsuits currently proceeding in spite of the Obama Administration frantically trying to squash them. Basically, Obamacare law states that taxpayers can only receive Obamacare subsidies (tax credits) if “the taxpayer is covered by a qualified health plan … that was enrolled in through an Exchange established by the State under section 1311 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.”

The lawsuits want an injunction that would stop all subsidies for those who enroll through federal exchanges - that are not “established by the State”.

Since you posted this in Great Debates instead of IMHO, may we presume you already have an opinion on the matter?

Well if these succeed (I am sure the Administration will take it all the way to SC, so presumably succeed there), I think that’s the end of Obamacare. At least on the federal level. May survive on the state level for states that are running those exchanges somehow, but since the whole shebang depended very much on the federal subsidies, the whole of it may collapse.

Unless of course Democrats win unfilibusterable majorities and push through a law fix.

I see.
Nothing serious to debate then.

This sounds great. Republicans should definitely get their hopes up and make this the focus of everything they do for several more years.

The same Court, with the same eye on its place in history, that upheld the individual mandate is going to strike the system down based on something *that *trivially nitpicky, you think?

Well, dreams are free.

ETA: The Onion nails it again.

Yep. Obamacare is finished everybody! So we can go back to the excellent health insurance system we had back in 2012.

“Nitpicky” meaning the clear and unambiguous language of the law?

Is that the same “State” referred to in the Second Commandment, then? :wink:

Please go on-I haven’t been this entertained since listening to Archie Campbell on Hee Haw.

I think you meant 2nd Amendment there not Commandment. Of course I can understand the Freudian slip there. :wink:

Yeah, Terr, I think you are using too narrow a definition of the word State here. You can’t really think this is going to be successful can you?

Well who knows? Maybe this is finally the break that the McCain campaign has been waiting for.

I had just read about this and a few concepts from this interest me, this might even be more of a GQ-type question:

  1. Historically / as a matter of practice, in a situation like this where the intent of the legislature is pretty clear would the SCOTUS (if it reached the SCOTUS) typically rule based on the “obvious intent” or would they be more likely to say “well, whatever the intent we have to go off the plain text of the legislation when that text is unambiguous?” I don’t mean how will our current makeup of SCOTUS justices vote, rather I mean, “in general practice does SCOTUS follow the letter of a statute or do they put more weight in the intent of the statute?”

  2. A State in political science terms is understood to be a “political entity with sovereign domain over a territory, that has internal and external legitimacy”, in that sense the “United States of America” is itself a State (and arguably each of the fifty named “States” are also States in the IR sense but ones with dual-sovereignty.) What is the history for how the term “State” is interpreted in American law? Must it only be interpreted as “one of the fifty States” or is the broader term which would include the actual United States itself also sometimes used?

It doesn’t just say “State” in vacuum. It says “established by the State under section 1311”. As you can see section 1311 deals, in excruciating detail, with individual States establishing their own exchanges.

As for whether it is successful - Obama administration, in both lawsuits, several times tried to get it dismissed. So far unsuccessfully. Which means several judges, including federal ones, think it has merit.

I’m not one of them fancy-pants constitutional scholars, mind, but I’ve many times seen “the state” used in reference to “national government”, so I can’t think these lawsuits have much of a chance of success.

In any event, Terr, I have the impression you don’t like the Affordable Care Act for some reason and that’s what you’d really like to talk about. Don’t you think it would more to the point to start a thread explaining why you don’t like it, and maybe discussion could go on from there?

So which state does ‘the State’ refer to in that passage? Does it specifically mean one particular state? If so, why did it not spell that out and list the actual state it means if its that specific in meaning? I don’t see ‘Oklahoma’ mentioned anywhere, I only see ‘the State’. So which of our 50 states do you define as ‘the State’? The one you are currently in? The one the lawsuit was filed in? If you were to say in conversation ‘the State’, to what would you be referring?

Also, what about the 2nd Amendment point, what do you think ‘the State’ refers to in the 2nd Amendment? If you interpret that version of ‘the State’ differently, why? Because Obamacare?

Oh, all right - one of the options available to each “State” was to delegate the task to the Feds. Why would you not think that qualifies as "established by the ‘State’ "?

As for the merit, peremptory dismissal is rare, and a judge refusing to grant it is hardly a ruling in favor. And, if there were merit beyond the bit of humor you’ve already provided, you’d be able to explain it, wouldn’t you?

Hmmmmm. It is hard to argue with what the lawsuits are claiming: section 1401 limits the tax credit to plans enrolled in via a state exchange under section 1311, and section 1311 exclusively deals with state, and not federal, exchanges. So, it’s likely to depend on the answer to this:

Which I would also be eager to know.

I did above. “The State under section 1311”. Section 1311 deals with exchanges created by individual states.

Ah, but were they frantic and squash-minded at the time? Apparently, court challenges only matter if one of the parties is frantically trying to squash something.

… and one of the options for each state was to leave it to the Federal exchanges. So that is how that particular state chose to establish the exchange for that state. You guys like outsourcing right? Why now do you take exception to this practice I wonder?

By the way I see that you ignored my above post about how you define the term ‘the State’ and went right to ElvisL1ves’s post and replied to that. Can I assume that you have no good answers to my questions then?