This was a lucky break for conservatives. Now they can keep pissing and moaning about the ACA and not have to choose between refusing to help millions of constituents who would have lost their insurance or fixing the ACA to help these people while at the same time pissing off the anti-ACA voters.
“I was praying the pieces wouldn’t fall on me.” - Dylan
Yeah, I took a gander at some of the wingnut comments that Ed Kilgore passed on over at Washington Monthly. Huckabee calls it “an out-of-control act of judicial tyranny” and, scoring double points for irony, adds, “Our Founding Fathers didn’t create a ‘do-over’ provision in our Constitution that allows unelected, Supreme Court justices the power to circumvent Congress and rewrite bad laws.”
But it’s so much fun to see him get like that!
I’m betting on Roberts, who has been showing subtle signs of getting fed up with the Court’s crazy uncle.
Here’s the short version:
Roberts: The law is ambiguous and can be interpreted either way, so, as decided in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, the IRS has the right to issue its own interpretation.
Scalia: What part of “Exchange established by the State” is ambiguous?
Heck, they dodged me. 
I was once interviewed as I got treatment to deal with E.Coli thanks to Obamacare. (Got cured recently, thanks Obama ) I told the reporter then that if this had gone the other way I would get involved in politics, and I do not care if Arpaio is the sheriff over here. Even if he would not like to see people like me get involved.
I will concentrate now on bringing the wife to the US (very close now, visa is moving along) and then I will get involved to turn Arizona blue in the next election (That is not impossible, the other Clinton won Arizona before.)
OOPS - I was reading into the lower-court decision by mistake.
Here’s the “real” short version:
Roberts: The law is ambiguous, but the right of the IRS to decide how to apply it “is premised on the theory that a statute’s ambiguity constitutes an implicit delegation from Congress to the agency to fill in the statutory gaps… In extraordinary cases, however, there may be reason to hesitate before concluding that Congress has intended such an implicit delegation." (as decided in FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp). That doesn’t apply here, so we’ll interpret it instead - and “state” means “state and Federal.”
Scalia: What part of “Exchange established by the State” is ambiguous?
No, Roberts explicitly rejected applying Chevron here. (OK, I see you picked up on that.)
I was skimming the decision fast, but the gist of that part seemed to be that if Congress was going to delegate something this major to a government agency, they’d have done so explicitly - and they would have especially been explicit in their intention to delegate to the IRS, which isn’t exactly expert on health care.
IMHO, the short version is this, from the end of part II.C. of Roberts’ opinion:
Or in the immortal words of the Rutles, “Hello, Get Lost.”
If that isn’t calling bullshit on the fundamental premise of the plaintiffs’ case, I don’t know what it is.
I’ve been so fucking giddy all day over the ruling. I especially love that the majority basically laughed the challenge out of court.
Thank goodness.
Anyone have any comment on the President’s statement in response to the ruling? He made two odd claims:
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That health care is now a right for all under ACA.
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That ACA is here to stay.
The first says directly that we have universal health care, the second strongly implies that single payer ain’t ever gonna happen. Obamacare is at least as permanent as Medicare.
Nah. I’m thinkin’ Ginsberg, that little minx…
Roberts using Scalia’s previous words in the majority opinion. What a hypocrite to do a 180 in his dissent.
[Graphics from “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell” on MSNBC 06-25-15]
Yeah, I’m going with “Roberts is totally fed up with Scalia.”
Clearly the hostility is mutual, but Roberts is doing a better job of expressing it in a more civil manner. Not surprising, given that Scalia’s basically going senile, and Roberts isn’t.
Looking back, was this case even worthy of the Court? Basically you take four words out of a 900+ page law which are in conflict with the intent of the law and other parts of the law and declare that the entire law hinges on those four words. I think this is right there with the “this court has no jurisdiction because it has yellow fringe on the flag” nonsense.
I think it’s a philosophical point, and not necessarily one codified into law (though I’m sure Obama would like it to be).
I believe ACA proponents (including Obama, most likely) believe that universal health care would be an improvement on the ACA, and would be seen more as such then as a removal-and-replacement of the ACA. So the ACA can be “here to stay” even if it is ultimately “improved” into UHC.
I don’t see why. Nothing in the ACA needs to change; just add a public option for health insurance that is cheaper and with better benefits than private insurers. They will disappear in short order, and we will have de facto single-payer health care.
And that can be as simple as a phased expansion of Medicare eligibility. That was almost part of *this *bill until Lieberman’s puppetmasters made him oppose it.
Except that the President has constantly referred to ACA as universal health care.
You won’t see more Democrats in Congress than you saw in 2008 for the rest of your lifetime, so if it didn’t happen then it won’t happen in the future with a less Democratic Congress.
I don’t believe you without multiple cites (for “constantly”). Please check them thoroughly – I certainly will.
ACA is universal access to health-care insurance. Close enough for now.
So you tell us your guys are going to *continue *to make reflexive, replacement-less opposition to ACA, for any reason or none, the center of their agenda no matter how support for that view continues to shrink (it’s already a minority position). Your first statement does not follow from that premise.
And can we list that among your election predictions? 