Comments

1

Like the old desegregation edicts. If states didn't comply, the Government came in and did it for them.
2
The ACA is doing everything it was supposed to do: Medicare is set to save billions, premiums are beginning to decrease, and millions are getting access to healthcare who could not before.

So of course all that is left is for conservative rulings that attempt to nitpick the law to death, and weaken it so it can not be successful.

It is the conservative long game: intentionally cripple legislation so that it can not he helpful or work as intended, then claim that legislation is bad because it is not helpful or working as intended.
3
I'm particularly irritated by the media's reporting of this (NPR included) as a blow to "Obama's Healthcare Law" rather than what it really is - a blow to people who think they now have insurance. This isn't some abstraction anymore, people.
4
That's interesting. The courts generally recognize the possibility of typos which is why they will read the context of the law or even review the debates in Congress in order to find the intended meaning. And then there is a board in Congress which can correct minor errors like that.
5
@1 JBITDMFOTP
6
This also is why not having a functioning Congress is such a big deal. Generally if there was a court case like this the Congress would just whisk through a law which clarified the language. That's how checks and balances are supposed to work.
7
The Dems rammed-through the ACA using a budget reconciliation process, to avoid a real debate about what's in the law. The statute references "exchanges established by the State" nine (9!) different times, and despite the reconciliation process was never amended. This is hardly a typo.

In fact, this was a ham-fisted Administration that, trying to coerce states into participation, set-up a two-tier system. When 36 states opted not to take-on the massive financial burden of federal excess, President Fubar decided to โ€œgo it aloneโ€ in ordering changes to federal laws.

(Remember during his first run for President, when people commented that Obama had never led a piece of legislation in his life? Well, that experience is really showing now.)

This president has had the Supreme Court rule against him 9-0 for a record 13 times with regard to executive overreach. He can't even hold his own fucking nominees!

The whole farce makes this gem shine particularly bright:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoE1R-xH…

Your president is a complete fool.

And while he has dinner tonight in Seattle, among friends paying $25,000 a plate, preaching about the perils of income inequality, you'll continue being fools for believing he's sincere.
8
@7 Try to at least trend toward reality with your talking points.
9
It's perfectly reasonable to believe that all people should have easy access to quality healthcare without fearing for financial devastation, while at the same time holding the opinion that the ACA is about the most inept, illogical, and disingenuous way of achieving that goal.
10
@8 These aren't "talking points." Just a few inconvenient truths.

For a campaign running on "Oh Yes We Can," the overwhelming number of 9-0 Supreme Court rulings against Obama is a constitutional construction of "Actually โ€“ No You Can't."

(But he's doing a nice job with foreign policy this week, so let's cut him some slack.)

12
@8: as much as 7 and I probably hold diametrically opposed political views, he is right that this is not a "typo" as so many liberal news outlets are characterizing it. The first step in interpreting a law is what it's plain language states. You only go to legislative intent if the language is not clear. In this case the language clearly says that the subsidies are only for people who buy through a state exchange. Don't blame the judges for this outcome, blame the legislators who made such an egregious oversight in drafting the law. A typo is putting a letter in the wrong place, not explicitly limiting a a subsidy to one certain group of people.
13
I'll concede that not entirely all 13 cases were about narrowly defined "executive power," though you'll also concede a court record during the past 3 terms, the 13 instances where the Supreme Court made a 9-0 ruling that substantially frustrated the representation of the Administration. You can 'splain it away if it makes you feel better, but there aren't many of the legal persuasion (liberal or conservative) that don't acknowledge he's getting his ass handed to him in court with great regularity.

On this heap of judicial misadventure, let's also consider...

IRS Targeting
Spying on AP Reporters/James Rosen
NSA Spying (Dropmire/PRISM/Hemisphere)
Fast & Furious
Solyndra
VA Hospital
Pigford
Drones-Killing
Extrajudicial Murder Policy
WikiLeaks
Ed Snowden
Syria
US Ambassador Killed in Benghazi
Iraq/ISIS
Iran Nuclear
Ukraine
Crimea
Malaysian Airlines Flight 17
Gaza
Deficit
Obamacare Web Site
Gitmo

I'm sure you can explain all of this away. You can tell us the VA Hospital had nothing to do with Obama, I'll tell you it was on his watch. As President, and member of the Veteran's Affairs Committee (2005-2008).

We will all tend to see politicians in a way that complements the narrative we'd like to see. But you can't polish this turd.

His is a spectacularly failed presidency. Very little of these misadventures have anything to do with Congressional gridlock. They have everything to do with a grand-minded poser, of marginal intellect, whose self-evangelizing, churlish act has run out of steam with two years on the clock.
15
Anyone who thinks the trajectory of Obamacare is to lower healthcare costs relative to service & quality is sorely lacking in the fundamentals of market economics.

And also probably believed:

1) "If you like your health insurance, you can keep it."
2) "If you like your doctor, you can keep him/her."
3) "There will be no rationing of healthcare. There will be no death panels." (See VA Hospital Fiasco)

The prices are climbing. The quality is falling. This wasn't "healthcare reform," this is just "health insurance redistribution."

And it won't be the wealthy that get hosed by government. Just watch.
16
@13 You're like a monkey throwing shit at the zoo.

Also:

*US Ambassador Killed in Benghazi*

Wow! Holy shit! That's never happened before! Hey, lets talk fake IRS scandals and pretend the failings of the VA just started and that Congress and the President, and quite frankly the general public, doesn't have a hand in treating vets poorly. Just Obama.

*The prices are climbing. The quality is falling. This wasn't "healthcare reform," this is just "health insurance redistribution."*

They are? That was quick. I guess all of those stories stating the exact opposite are wrong. People using the exchanges and medicaid expansion would have just started seeing providers a few months ago. But hey, why bother with actual facts. (Now go grab some more of your shit out of your ass and start flinging.)
17
@15: What is your brilliant recommendation then? Should we cancel the ACA and have insurance companies cancel policies once people were admitted to the hospital just like in the good old days (a year ago)? Should pre-existing conditions be used to deny coverage? Should people be forced to go bankrupt of medical care?

You are good at complaining, but what is your fucking solution? The ACA is far from perfect, but it does fix the worst problems.
18
Tax-deferred health savings accounts, consumer-directed benefits, inter-state insurance competition, state-provided major medical for the indigent, indexed risk sharing across providers for patients with persisting conditions as a condition for market access/licensing, ending CON for facilities, tort reform for defensive medicine, captitated care/ACO incentives to providers, out-of-pocket healthcare costs can be drawn down against other social benefits (social security).

For a start....
19
Also @16.

Try reading something other than HuffPo and Slate for your (a'hem) "news"

"Insurance " prices are coming down (for some), but healthcare COSTS just reached a 10' year hiigh in quarterly inflation.

See, all of those benefits ACA packed into plans were packed in ever-higher deductibles. So more people can afford insurance, and the insurance covers more mandates, but the actual cost of care (insurance premium + deductible) is gonna crush you. But you're too busy chasing fairytales of Hope and Change to notice

Just wait to see what this mess looks like in about 2 years before you call it a success. You're gonna be shocked and pissed at what Dear Leader delivered.
20
@18 - Most of those are stupid ideas that come from a misguided belief that the invisible hand of the free market makes everything better.
21
Stripping healthcare from millions of people shouldn't be something that any political party is eager to do. This should motivate voters in November to keep the Senate in the hands of Democrats.
22
@20 And socialism has SUCH a better track record.

Your imagined healthcare "reform" under ACA does little to nothing to address costs. Only (ONLY) by involving consumers directly in the interests of reduced costs (stay healthy, retire early) will there be a meaningful reduction in costs pressures, and an increase in competition, transparency, quality.

But no evidentiary analogs in the rest of the economy will persuade the committed healthcare universalist from the folly of their support for President Fubar, so go ahead an soak in your pending dismay for "Golly, why does this system not seem to work after all?"

Fools.



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