SCOTUS is still considering the ACA and, with RGB replaced by ACB, I figure it is much higher than 50% that it will be overturned. What is likely to happen then?
Completely overturned? Millions of people lose insurance, including many young people aged 21-26 who are allowed to stay on their parents’ insurance, and if you lose your insurance, good luck getting a new one if you have an existing condition.
The Republicans wouldn’t agree to any nationwide plan, and certainly not something as comprehensive as the minimum that the Democrats would accept.
I personally don’t think it will be overturned. The arguments last year showed that Justices Roberts & Kavanaugh seemed favorable to the “don’t overturn ACA” side.
If it is overturned, the attached link is a good summary of the fallout at least in the near-term:
It would be pretty ugly, to say the least.
here in ca nothing as we have our own version of the ACA written into state law by public vote I think the services would shrink a bit since the feds won’t be helping out but health net assures me they’ll still be there no matter what happens in DC
I’ve heard it said that Roberts is conscientious about keeping the SC from veering to the extreme right. However, I’m more surprised by Kavanaugh possibly becoming the unlikely defender of the ACA.
Question: Has the Supreme Court ever reversed a decision that was a major move “forward”?
If one section of a multiple section bill is unconstitutional the Supreme Court traditionally just considers that one section unconstitutional and allows the other parts to continue:
I am may be wrong about this, since I haven’t seen in suggested anywhere, but it seems to me that this whole situation could be made moot by Congress.
So it is my understanding (please correct me if I’m wrong) that the timeline goes as follows:
- Originally the ACA was founded on the idea that people would be required to get insurance or else would have to pay a penalty to the IRS.
- This was challenged in the supreme court as being an unconstitutional infringement or rights, but they found that it amounted to a tax and so was constitutional
- Then Trump came into office and Congress passed a tax cut under reconciliation that reduced the mandate to $0.
- Then a bunch of conservatives (including two people from Texas) argued that since the penalty was zero, it wasn’t really a tax, and so the mandate was unconstitutional again and since the mandate was key to the bill, the whole ACA has to be thrown out.
- While most legal experts think this is hogwash, some Texas judges agreed with the it setting up an appeal to the supreme court.
So my question is why don’t the Democrats Congress use its majority in both houses of congress to push through a simple bill reinstating the penalty putting us back as stage 2 and pulling the rug out of the whole argument?
do you mean has the Supreme Court overturned good legislation or has it overturned bad legislation?
the court overturned some of FDRs laws designed to escape the depression and increase standards of living among the working poor.
Agreed, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a 9-0 vote against overturning the ACA.
I could potentially lose my insurance, or have to pay a fortune for it (as if I don’t already) as a cancer survivor. Millions of other people are in the same situation.
Step one would be to dump the filibuster, because there’s no way they’re getting 10 Republicans on board for that.
This is clearly a budget related matter, and would also clearly not raise the deficit. So it could be moved through via reconciliation with just 51 votes the same way Republicans repealed it in the first place.
It’s not clear to me, but anyway, they’ve already shot their load for reconciliation this year, so I think it would have to be next year, assuming they could get, for example, Joe Manchin, on board.
Joe Manchin has come out pro-ACA. He realizes that having 150,000 of his constituents lose their healthcare coverage in a blink of an eye would not be good for his keeping his seat. I think that secretly even most Republican law makers don’t really want to be responsible for the ACA going poof, they just want it as a whipping boy.
There is the problem that they will have to wait til next year though. They really should have tucked it in with the stimulus.
I think they will use reconciliation next year to make the temporary ACA changes that just went with the ARP bill permanent. And that will be a huge thing for a lot of lower and middle-income people, as the ACA will finally have tax credits that are strong enough to be a good deal to millions who are locked out.
Also, there is talk that Wyoming and Alabama are looking seriously at the Medicaid Expansion subsidy that went into the ARP. Biden raised the FMAP by 5% across the board for a few years for the non-Expansion states. It’s a helluva good fiscal deal for any state that takes it. If Wyoming and Alabama take this thing - and those are two of the reddest states anywhere - I think that might start the domino effect for the rest of the red states to take it. We’re up to 39 states (including DC), with 12 still left to go. I had predicted no state would take it, due to ideology. But early reporting from Wyoming and Alabama says they might be willing to play ball.
The Republicans would have fucking field day if that was tried.
In what way? Sure there would be all of the standard anti-Obamacare ads, talking heads and twitter screeds, but what else is new? The ACA currently has greater than 50% approval, and the realization of millions of people losing healthcare coverage in an instant would focus the attention even more, with people demanding action. Overall I think it would be win for the Dems.
In what way? How about “The Dems want to make you pay a penalty!!!”.
Old news. Democrats also want perverts in your restrooms and murderers and rapists streaming across the border. I think the penalty is already figured in to the Obamacare polls.