# What is your ongoing opinion of the Affordable Care Act? (Title Edited) **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [January 17, 2013, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561 "2013-01-17T23:21:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 160
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2014, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/3182 "2014-11-12T16:28:55Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > If two people are on an island sans government are you saying that one can kill the other with impunity, rape, torture, etc. without violating the other person’s rights, as long as they are strong enough to do so? I think you believe this. I don’t. The Nazis had no \*\*\*right \*\*\*to exterminate 6 million Jews, yet they did so anyway. A theoretical and moral right, and the ability to protect that right from being violated, are two different things. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2014, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/3183 "2014-11-12T17:05:49Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > The Nazis had no \*\*\*right \*\*\*to exterminate 6 million Jews, yet they did so anyway. They had a legal right to kill Jews; they changed the law, and [killed them according to the law.](http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007887) So, they had a legal right. But it still was not a nice thing to do. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2014, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/3184 "2014-11-12T20:12:20Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > What do you base this on? > > What do you base this on? Empathy, cultural conditioning and my being a member of a communal living primate species. Certainly it isn’t written in the fiber of space-time. > [@](#): > > They provide guidance on objective moral behavior. Ultimately I think this is a philisophical question and my objection to your characterization rests on your dogmatic approach to a belief set that has no empirical basis. I accept you think the way you’ve stated, and that it has no greater certainty than what I have espoused. Though our current (U.S) government is founded on principles that are consistent with the concept of natural rights so it’s not like the concept is not mainstream. I would say the belief that rights are only derived from what the state grants is more foreign to the U.S. system of government than the opposite. The founding documents also mention a creator, and there probably isn’t one. They assert things. That doesn’t make self-evident rights sudden appear and have any sort of tangible meaning. If you think natural rights exist you should be able to provide evidence for them. Such evidence is utterly lacking, so casting that position as having equal certainty as them not existing isn’t persuasive at all. By that standard, since there is no evidence for vampires, they are just as likely to exist as not exist. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/3185 "2014-11-13T03:03:16Z")
You know what’s funny? That liberals are going to whine if ACA subsidies in federal exchanges get struck down even though they seem pretty comfortable admitting now that they lied to sell the law. [http://www.westernjournalism.com/bs-megyn-kelly-slams-dem-pollsters-defense-obamacare/](http://www.westernjournalism.com/bs-megyn-kelly-slams-dem-pollsters-defense-obamacare/) Democrats think SCOTUS will lose legitimacy if they severely damage ACA this way. How? The people who originally passed the law, a whole bunch of them(nearly half of Senators) are no longer in office. The President doesn’t have any political capital whatsoever. THe law is polling as badly as it always has. If they do rule against the administration, who is going to denounce them and more importantly, who will actually care what they have to say? ---
**Author:** ![2ManyTacos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/3da27b/32.png) [@2ManyTacos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2ManyTacos)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/3186 "2014-11-13T03:49:34Z")
C’mon **adaher,** cut the crap. You’re trying to incite rage from the same party that sold us the fuckin’ _Iraq War._ I think if this latest Gruber unearthing is indicative of anything, it’s that the guy is supremely amenable to gaffes. [Here’s](http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120251/jonathan-gruber-obamacare-comments-get-aca-history-wrong?utm_content=bufferc9e48&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer) a nice retort to this latest round of nonsense. _ **The people who brought you the phony arithmetic of the Bush tax cuts and Medicare Part D and the self-financing Iraq war are upset about the ACA** , which is genuinely fiscally sound._ And for the umpteenth time, yes, the Supreme Court will no longer be a legitimate institution if it rules against the administration in the subsidy case. It would henceforth forever be seen as nothing more than the judicial arm of the Republican Party. ---
**Author:** ![2ManyTacos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/3da27b/32.png) [@2ManyTacos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2ManyTacos)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/3187 "2014-11-13T04:11:10Z")
To add to this, what the Hell is up with the obsession with Gruber anyway? The man didn’t write the law, he didn’t vote on it; all he did was consult and offer projections on how it would function. Whatever he says has no legal merit, as opposed to the actual _drafters_ of the legislation who have been resoundingly up-front about the subsidy lawsuit bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/3188 "2014-11-13T04:23:50Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > You know what’s funny? That liberals are going to whine if ACA subsidies in federal exchanges get struck down even though they seem pretty comfortable admitting now that they lied to sell the law. > > [http://www.westernjournalism.com/bs-megyn-kelly-slams-dem-pollsters-defense-obamacare/](http://www.westernjournalism.com/bs-megyn-kelly-slams-dem-pollsters-defense-obamacare/) > > Democrats think SCOTUS will lose legitimacy if they severely damage ACA this way. How? The people who originally passed the law, a whole bunch of them(nearly half of Senators) are no longer in office. The President doesn’t have any political capital whatsoever. THe law is polling as badly as it always has. If they do rule against the administration, who is going to denounce them and more importantly, who will actually care what they have to say? Your source is Megyn Fucking Kelly? Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/3189 "2014-11-13T04:26:39Z")
Actually, my source is the Democrat she was interviewing. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/3190 "2014-11-13T04:29:21Z")
> [@2ManyTacos](#): > > And for the umpteenth time, yes, the Supreme Court will no longer be a legitimate institution if it rules against the administration in the subsidy case. It would henceforth forever be seen as nothing more than the judicial arm of the Republican Party. In whose eyes? The law itself barely has any democratic legitimacy. It wouldn’t pass today and likely wouldn’t pass in any iteration of Congress in the next 20 years or the previous 20 years. It passed during a tiny window of opportunity with Democrats lying the entire way about what was in it(which most of them didn’t even really know what was in it in the first place). Elections have consequences, and one of the consequences of this election is that there isn’t anybody left to criticize the Supreme court decision on the Democratic side who anyone is likely to pay attention to who isn’t already a loyal Democrat. ---
**Author:** ![2ManyTacos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/3da27b/32.png) [@2ManyTacos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2ManyTacos)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/3191 "2014-11-13T04:31:13Z")
And, uh, the fact that at least **5 million people** would instantly lose health coverage in the wake of a stupid SCOTUS ruling is pretty damn telling. People [like this man](http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/11/08/without-obamacare-i-would-have-died-im-scared-the-supreme-court-is-going-to-gut-the-part-that-saved-me/?utm_source=digg) will _die._ I think it’s safe to say that at least SOME of those millions of people will speak out against the newly-illegitimate SCOTUS. ---
**Author:** ![2ManyTacos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/3da27b/32.png) [@2ManyTacos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2ManyTacos)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/3192 "2014-11-13T04:36:07Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > In whose eyes? The law itself barely has any democratic legitimacy. It wouldn’t pass today and likely wouldn’t pass in any iteration of Congress in the next 20 years or the previous 20 years. It passed during a tiny window of opportunity with Democrats lying the entire way about what was in it(which most of them didn’t even really know what was in it in the first place). > > Elections have consequences, and one of the consequences of this election is that there isn’t anybody left to criticize the Supreme court decision on the Democratic side who anyone is likely to pay attention to who isn’t already a loyal Democrat. Yes, elections do have consequences, and Obama was elected in the first place under the promise of enacting health reform. He was REELECTED - by a landslide - after it passed under the promise of completely enacting it. Barely any democratic legitimacy? :smack: Again, c’mon, cut the crap. The law was debated for a year and a half in Congress, passed both the Senate & the House with votes by duly elected representatives, signed into law by the duly elected president, upheld (the first time) by a GOP-led Supreme Court, and reaffirmed by Obama’s reelection. Cut. The. Crap. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/3193 "2014-11-13T04:47:14Z")
It was passed only because they lied about new taxes and lied about people being able to keep their health insurance. It’s a mockery of democratic legitimacy and it would be sweet justice for it to be damaged because they couldn’t agree on a rather important issue. And don’t carry water for even more Democratic lies by claiming they always intended to have federal exchanges have subsidies. We’ve got two people who waded deep into the law’s intricacies who said it didn’t and the IRS itself read the law at first to only allow subsidies in state exchanges. Political conformity was imposed once it became a hill Democrats had to stand or die on. And 5 million people losing their health insurance? Probably won’t even be close to that, but even if it is, the law will be fixed. Republicans aren’t going to just let that happen. The law will be repaired, and in exchange the Democrats will be forced to keep the promises they made to pass the law: You will forever be allowed to keep your health insurance if that’s what you and the insurance company want, and the taxes Democrats denied were there will be repealed. ---
**Author:** ![2ManyTacos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/3da27b/32.png) [@2ManyTacos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2ManyTacos)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/3194 "2014-11-13T04:55:58Z")
The fact that you’re buying into the cult-like Halbig Trutherism is evidence of your ignorance. Also, good to know that you’re gung-hoe for eliminating the mechanisms that finance the ACA. For somebody as fiscally conservative as yourself - don’t forget, not too long ago you were decrying the law for adding to the deficit even though every CBO analysis has said otherwise - it’s good to know that you’d be perfectly fine with, y’know, not paying for all the nice stuff that the ACA does. ---
**Author:** ![2ManyTacos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/3da27b/32.png) [@2ManyTacos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2ManyTacos)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/3195 "2014-11-13T05:00:53Z")
This entire argument is so Gawddamned stupid that I feel certifiably dumber for doing this. Dude, here is [contemporaneous FUCKING EVIDENCE](http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/affordable-care-act-opponents-are-cherry-picking-their-history/2014/10/30/2199a04e-5fac-11e4-91f7-5d89b5e8c251_story.html) that the Halbig argument is horse-shit. Arguing that the ACA framers didn’t intend for universal subsidies is so stupid. It doesn’t even deserve the legitimacy that this Court has granted it, yet here we are. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/3196 "2014-11-13T05:03:27Z")
Why didn’t they tell the IRS? Or Gruber? Or Jonathon Cohn? Because they had a different interpretation,at least back when it was assumed that the states would just do the federal government’s bidding. This is just the next phase in their deception campaign. ---
**Author:** ![MemoryLeak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6f9a4e/32.png) [@MemoryLeak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MemoryLeak)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/3197 "2014-11-13T05:38:34Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Ah, I see your problem, you think \*rights \*and _shit I’d prefer_ are the same thing. > > Of course you shouldn’t kill and torture other people. What does that have to do with rights? Your impulse to not kill others is based on our evolution as a social species. Not some fantastical Right of Life that predated the universe. > > Of course it’s shitty to rape, murder and steal. But how is that person’s “natural right” to not be raped, murdered or stolen from, meaningful in the least? No one is enforcing that right, so it means exactly nothing. > > Please answer this: In what way is the universe any different on that island if those rights exist or not? If the bigger rapist, murderer guy decides to obey them, great, they live on the island in peace. If not, what do these mystic natural rights do? So in your world a regime - say North Korea or one of any number on African, Middle East or \*.stan kleptocracies - can do any thing they want and nobody can say boo because, well, they’re a state? Judgments of these states are our inbred racism? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/3198 "2014-11-13T06:40:28Z")
Let’s reverse Lobohan’s question. If there are no natural rights, why did we establish governments in the first place? What’s the point of a government? Free stuff? ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/3199 "2014-11-13T12:58:47Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Let’s reverse Lobohan’s question. If there are no natural rights, why did we establish governments in the first place? What’s the point of a government? Free stuff? To protect the weak from the strong. No natural rights necessary. We do it because we might be weak someday; it is enlightened self-interest. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/3200 "2014-11-13T13:17:43Z")
That doesn’t really make much sense. A government that does not recognize rights is just a very strong entity that bullies people much more efficiently than individuals. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/3201 "2014-11-13T13:59:38Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > That doesn’t really make much sense. A government that does not recognize rights is just a very strong entity that bullies people much more efficiently than individuals. Bullies deserve to be bullied. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561.md?page=159) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561.md?page=161)