I did too, in MD. They are about 30-40% higher than what I have right now for an individual policy (and mine is a high-risk policy). And this is without subsidy.
So, OP, what do you think about the discussion we’ve had in which all corners seem to agree that there’s no merit to the lawsuit?
“All corners” don’t seem to agree in this thread. As well, the several judges, by refusing to dismiss the case, seem to think that it may have merit. And third, you seem to have missed the point that the OP was not about the case’s merit.
A case having merit has nothing to do with whether or not it is truly stupid to bring that case.
If the plaintiff wins, the plaintiff’s cause loses by virtue of the subsidy being lost rather than by Obamacare being killed off. That makes it truly stupid to bring the case, despite the case having merit in terms of clarifying the meaning and scope of the legislation.
What happens if the plaintiff’s win? A lot of people will think that they are truly dumb fucks.
Ok, perhaps lack of merit was the wrong word to use. Seems to me that the judges found that the lawsuits were not frivolous, but the discussion here plainly indicates that the text of the statute doesn’t support the plaintiff’s allegations, plus the burden on the plaintiffs is almost certainly insurmountable.
So, you don’t want to discuss the substance of the case? You just want to speculate on what would happen if monkeys did, indeed, fly out of someone’s butt? If you think the plaintiffs are right, why don’t you say why?
Sure. Because it is really dumb to resist getting millions more people hooked on government handouts.
The substance of the case is pretty clear. It requires twisting into a pretzel to get the IRS “interpretation”. A court without political pressures on it would clearly have to decide it for the plaintiffs. It is pretty clear that there is no such court, so such outcome is in doubt.
Yes, it is really dumb to put up a barrier to other peoples’ health based on radical ideology. Exceptionally dumb.
Got news for you: people do not need to be saved from access to better health care, and they do not need to be saved from having better health.
Of course. The end justifies the means.
Heh. As others here have stated in various ways, “Magic Words” interpretations of the law have had a…dubious history. The intent here is clear, and this case will last about twenty minutes when it finally gets to trial.
Yes, you’re here too, nobody has said otherwise.
I’m convinced some judges let cases proceed just in hope of getting some light entertainment when the plaintiff’s attorneys actually come into court and try to argue the thing.
Your OP may not have been, but your follow-up post #3 certainly did - you expressed complete certainty that this is the end of Obamacare. Yes, it’s fair to address that too, with or without the mockery it almost demands.
Any court that doesn’t decide that the law says what it says does so because of “political pressures?” Why, is the IRS threatening to audit judges based on how they rule?
Go read my post about star-bellied Sneetches. It takes a misreading of the words in the law to come up with the plaintiff’s position.
Read Richard Parker’s explanation of the IRS interpretation and explain what’s pretzelesque about it.
I say we just shut down the government until SCOTUS rules.
Except CJ Roberts invalidated that policy with the ACA after everyone on both sides of the aisle and IIRC even in arguements absolutely, positively agreed that the fines were not a tax and he said the IRS collects it? It’s a tax and therefore legal.
I think that it’s pretty clear that DC and the USA itself are not considered states under the law.
He said the ACA penalties function like a tax and are therefore within the taxing power. I don’t know what policy you’re referring to, in any event; the post you are responding to was a question.
Why would it be the end of obamacare? Why wouldn’t everyone in those states just have to pay the rack price for insurance or pay the $95 penalty?
A lot of blue states thought their citizens would get the subsidiy regardless of whether they set up the exchange or not, so they didn’t bother.
Setting up an exchange would be as easy as creating a separate user interface for the federal exchange. I suspect that if the plaintiffs win, then all the blue states will set up these mirror sites and the oens that don’t will have a lot of pissed of citizens. People here in Virgtinia are already pissed of that we are rejecting free medicaid money. If we then rejected the federal subsidy as well, I think Virginia would turn a bluer shade of purple.
Don’t be so sure that the crazy nutjobs running the Republican party will necessarily be running the Republican party in 2014.
Hrmm, and I thought the litigation might result in Obamcare being a lot cheaper than first intended by screwing poor people in red states. Oh well, I guess this is just another missed opportunity to screw poor people.
If we’re going anecdotal, apples to apples, the costs are significantly cheaper here in Virginia. I don’t qualify for a subsidy and these prices are significantly lower than my cobra plan from almost ten years ago.
Yeah getting people hooked on health care is evil.
I think you are seeing complexity where none exists. I don’t know about the specifics in this case but where regulatory authority is very broad, the IRS almost never has their regulations overturned, even without all that conspiratorial political pressure being brought to bear on lifetime appointed judges. :rolleyes:
IIRC, in many instances, the IRS has used their regulatory authority to treat DC as a state. They might have even extended the defintiion of state to foreign countries in a couple of cases.
I find it … interesting … that routine dismissal motions are being spun as “frantically trying to squash”. I guess the response to Democrats saying “Republicans know it will work, so they’re scared of it” is to say “Democrats know the suits will succeed, so they’re scared of them”; like a lot of such things, it’s a false parallel.
Yes. If you are not going to judge an action by its outcome, what would you judge it by?
I think it’s an “or.”
As I understand it correctly (since I think that the statute doesn’t explicitly delegate rule making authority for this issue to the IRS), the analysis should go:
-
Is the language of the statute ambiguous?
-
Did Congress clearly directly “speak” to the issue (and I assume we can use all the standard intentionalist sources)?
If the answer to 1 is “yes” and 2 is “no,” then you ask whether the agency regulation is reasonable and, if it is, afford it significant deference.
So in order to win, the plaintiffs would have to show that the statute is unambiguous or that Congress had a clear intent or that the interpretation is unreasonable.
As a practical matter, the best argument would be that the statute is unambiguous.
It’s about as unambiguous as it gets when it says “an Exchange established by the State under section 1311” and section 1311 ONLY talks about Exchanges established by individual states and says absolutely nothing about Exchanges established by the feds.
So what do you think should happen if these lawsuits are not successful?