Are you happy about the Supreme Courts decision on King v. Burwell

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Yes, I don't want millions of people losing their health insurance.  (sane)

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

On pragmatic grounds when it comes to the subsidies themselves, yes.  I don't have much confidence in Congress and the President in fixing it if it fell apart.

On jurisprudence grounds, no.  States means states.  Congress didn't anticipate that they couldn't force states to set up their own exchanges.   It's not the job of the Executive or the Court to pick up the slack on Congress's lack of foresight and change the bills for them so that they actually work. It's the job of Congress to not pass sloppy legislation.

Are you serious?  You think that basic logic and the clear intent should be overridden by something that's  basically a typo?

I wonder how you would feel about a typo in a piece of legislation that you support.  And, that's the problem here, it's pure partisanship by the conservative justices.

did you even read what I wrote?  This is not about a typo.  A typo would be if it said "An echange establsshed by the stats."  This is a matter of legislators not doing the job making sure the parts of the legislation fit together to make sure it would work in the event some states decided not to pursue their own exchanges. 

Usually the fact that most or even all lawmakers don't know something is included in a bill does not legally invalidate that part of the statute as passed.  I don't know why that would be any different here when its a case of something not being in the bill even if most of the lawmakers who voted for it would have wanted in it.

[bedstuy]

On pragmatic grounds when it comes to the subsidies themselves, yes.  I don't have much confidence in Congress and the President in fixing it if it fell apart.

On jurisprudence grounds, no.  States means states.  Congress didn't anticipate that they couldn't force states to set up their own exchanges.   It's not the job of the Executive or the Court to pick up the slack on Congress's lack of foresight and change the bills for them so that they actually work. It's the job of Congress to not pass sloppy legislation.

Are you serious?  You think that basic logic and the clear intent should be overridden by something that's  basically a typo?

I wonder how you would feel about a typo in a piece of legislation that you support.  And, that's the problem here, it's pure partisanship by the conservative justices.

did you even read what I wrote?  This is not about a typo.  A typo would be if it said "An echange establsshed by the stats."  This is a matter of legislators not doing the job making sure the parts of the legislation fit together to make sure it would work in the event some states decided not to pursue their own exchanges. 

Usually the fact that most or even all lawmakers don't know something is included in a bill does not legally invalidate that part of the statute as passed.  I don't know why that would be any different here when its a case of something not being in the bill even if most of the lawmakers who voted for it would have wanted in it.

No.  I didn't say it was a typo, it was basically a typo. 

There is one ambiguous line, in a context of a larger bill.  The bill creates the system of the Federally run exchange and it was understood by everyone that those could step in case the states didn't set up an exchange.  There was just one ambiguous line, which could be read either way, if read in isolation.  But, you don't read every line of text in isolation, you read a bill as a whole to understand what each line means.  If you never factor in the intent and the context of the entire bill, you can come up with all kinds of crazy results like this.

And, remember, Republican lawyers combed through this bill and nobody raised this when the first Obamacare suit was in the works.  This argument was off the wall and nobody anticipated it for that reason.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

The words of the line itself are not ambiguous. "We meant to put it in there but we forgot"  is not generally a reason to interpret a bill other than what it says in the plain meaning of words.

[Slander and/or Libel]

If somebody could find me one article or statement by somebody contemporaneous to when the law was being debated and passed that stated they intended the law to work in such a way as to deny subsidies to states that hadn't established their own exchanges, I'd give the argument a lot more credence. Just one example. That's all I ask.

[Torie]

If somebody could find me one article or statement by somebody contemporaneous to when the law was being debated and passed that stated they intended the law to work in such a way as to deny subsidies to states that hadn't established their own exchanges, I'd give the argument a lot more credence. Just one example. That's all I ask.

It would be nice to know how and why the language was written the way it was in the first instance.

[Slander and/or Libel]

If somebody could find me one article or statement by somebody contemporaneous to when the law was being debated and passed that stated they intended the law to work in such a way as to deny subsidies to states that hadn't established their own exchanges, I'd give the argument a lot more credence. Just one example. That's all I ask.

It would be nice to know how and why the language was written the way it was in the first instance.

Not sure. I would find it credible if an early draft of the law included something like the incentive mechanism proposed by the King plaintiffs, and some of the wording got missed when it was getting revised to provide the federal exchange as a backstop. But again, nothing contemporaneous that I've seen that says the "no subsidies for non-state exchanges" incentive was intended by the authors of the law.

[Torie]

If somebody could find me one article or statement by somebody contemporaneous to when the law was being debated and passed that stated they intended the law to work in such a way as to deny subsidies to states that hadn't established their own exchanges, I'd give the argument a lot more credence. Just one example. That's all I ask.

It would be nice to know how and why the language was written the way it was in the first instance.

Not sure. I would find it credible if an early draft of the law included something like the incentive mechanism proposed by the King plaintiffs, and some of the wording got missed when it was getting revised to provide the federal exchange as a backstop. But again, nothing contemporaneous that I've seen that says the "no subsidies for non-state exchanges" incentive was intended by the authors of the law.

The author Gruber said it was intended to be there to coerce states into setting up exchanges. Then the lawsuit came down, and he did a 180 degree tack, and said it was a typo, and his remarks an "oral typo."  Apparently, as Pelosi said, nobody read the law before it was voted upon (except Gruber as it were), and thus we have no relevant legislative history on this. So apparently the "intent" was to write the law language to coerce states, and then after for some states the coercion failed, claim that the law language actually meant nothing at all. That strikes me as the ultimate in having your cake and eating it too.

Do you think the above characterization is unfair?

[Slander and/or Libel]

If somebody could find me one article or statement by somebody contemporaneous to when the law was being debated and passed that stated they intended the law to work in such a way as to deny subsidies to states that hadn't established their own exchanges, I'd give the argument a lot more credence. Just one example. That's all I ask.

It would be nice to know how and why the language was written the way it was in the first instance.

Not sure. I would find it credible if an early draft of the law included something like the incentive mechanism proposed by the King plaintiffs, and some of the wording got missed when it was getting revised to provide the federal exchange as a backstop. But again, nothing contemporaneous that I've seen that says the "no subsidies for non-state exchanges" incentive was intended by the authors of the law.

The author Gruber said it was intended to be there to coerce states into setting up exchanges. Then the lawsuit came down, and he said it was a typo, and his remarks an "oral typo."  Apparently as Pelosi said, nobody read the law before it was passed, so we have no legislative history. So apparently the "intent" was to write the law language to coerce states, and then after for some states the coercion failed, claim that the law language actually meant nothing at all.

Do you think the above characterization is unfair?

That's why I said contemporaneous evidence to the law's drafting and passage. I don't immediately discount the Gruber quote, but if this was supposed to be a core way the law was intended to function, you would think that during the months and months it took to pass it, there would have been some mention of it somewhere. It's not as though the law was never discussed.

[Torie]

Here is some more about it. It was included, and then dropped in the negotiations between the Senate and House. That leaves the question as to why it was dropped.

[Slander and/or Libel]

Here is some more about it. It was included, and then dropped in the negotiations between the Senate and House. That leaves the question as to why it was dropped.

Dunno. The analysis you linked to is certainly biased, wouldn't you say? It could have been that in the merging the drafters omitted language that they thought was redundant. Without a link comparing the original language and the new language (which it's kind of silly that such link isn't in the article you posted, right?), I'm just relying on their word as to what the language specified.

The fact remains that up until this lawsuit, absolutely nobody involved treated the law as though it were supposed to work the way the King plaintiffs said it was explicitly intended to work. Not the states, not the federal government, not the CBO, nobody.

[Torie]

Here is some more about it. It was included, and then dropped in the negotiations between the Senate and House. That leaves the question as to why it was dropped.

Dunno. The analysis you linked to is certainly biased, wouldn't you say? It could have been that in the merging the drafters omitted language that they thought was redundant. Without a link comparing the original language and the new language (which it's kind of silly that such link isn't in the article you posted, right?), I'm just relying on their word as to what the language specified.

The fact remains that up until this lawsuit, absolutely nobody involved treated the law as though it were supposed to work the way the King plaintiffs said it was explicitly intended to work. Not the states, not the federal government, not the CBO, nobody.

Oh, I think what was said was true enough. The language was probably dropped. But if you can find more information, great. I just did a google. Maybe it was dropped by accident, maybe by design, but only by Gruber's design and his henchmen, or whatever. This is what happens when things are rushed. It's a mess.

[Slander and/or Libel]

Here is some more about it. It was included, and then dropped in the negotiations between the Senate and House. That leaves the question as to why it was dropped.

Dunno. The analysis you linked to is certainly biased, wouldn't you say? It could have been that in the merging the drafters omitted language that they thought was redundant. Without a link comparing the original language and the new language (which it's kind of silly that such link isn't in the article you posted, right?), I'm just relying on their word as to what the language specified.

The fact remains that up until this lawsuit, absolutely nobody involved treated the law as though it were supposed to work the way the King plaintiffs said it was explicitly intended to work. Not the states, not the federal government, not the CBO, nobody.

Oh, I think what was said was true enough. The language was probably dropped. But if you can find more information, great. I just did a google. Maybe it was dropped by accident, maybe by design, but only by Gruber's design and his henchmen, or whatever. This is what happens when things are rushed. It's a mess.

But that's all speculation. I don't think it's a huge request, to have some contemporaneous sources on this.

[JohnRM]

In response to the poll question; Yes, I believe the court did the right thing.

Despite my opposition to the Affordable Care Act, it would be quite dishonorable to have it taken down by what amounts to a technicality, at best. The intention of the law was clear, in my mind. More than that, I would not have an Act of Congress, of such a nature, repudiated by the Supreme Court unless the issue of constitutionality is both grave and clear. Though health insurance is certainly an important issue to Americans, it is not a matter of crucial import in so far as these things go. The constitutionality of the issue is also highly debatable, and that debate should remain within the Congress and the States.

The power and authority of the Supreme Court should be used sparingly.

[TJ in Oregon]

Yes but I think it was the wrong decision if that makes any sense.

There's not really any question the country is better for the Supreme Court ruling the way it did to allow subsidies to go to the federally run exchanges. Cleaning that up would be a mess. But I also think the text clearly refers to states and no amount of squaring the circle undoes that.

So I guess I'm glad people get to keep their insurance subsidies.

[TDAS04]

Absolutely.