The recent Supreme Court ruling on health insurance subsidies means they upheld the "stupidity of the American people” (as Jonathan Gruber would say, and has), and for the third time the Court stretched the law instead of interpreting the law.
How the Court arrived at this 6-3 decision has baffled many observers, and the ruling opinion written by Justice Roberts stuns those of us who believe that certain words matter, as Rob said last week.
But the words of Justice Antonio Scalia in his the dissenting opinion had plenty of meaning:
"Having transformed two major parts of the law, the Court today has turned its attention to a third. The Act that Congress passed makes tax credits available only on an ‘Exchange established by the State.’ This Court, however, concludes that this limitation would prevent the rest of the Act from working as well as hoped. So it rewrites the law to make tax credits available everywhere. We should start calling this law SCOTUScare."
Many people will not realize what this means to them directly until they get their next health insurance premium bill, their new deductible amounts, or until they need their doctor or a medical specialist and are shocked that certain services are only partially covered, or no longer covered at all.
These stunning increases in costs and decreases in services are a direct result of what we should call the Unaffordable Care Act. And despite the fact that the five-year-old law has not achieved any of its promises, the liberal leaning justices continue to resuscitate it by interpreting the law to be what the president and the Democrats "hoped" it would be, rather than what it is, which is an injustice!
The questionable claim by the administration that nearly eight million people now have health insurance does not off-set the 30 million who do not, and they probably will not be able to get it because they can't qualify for a small subsidy in the first place. And when some people did qualify for a subsidy, they had to return it by way of their tax return, because their actual taxable income was greater than their estimated income. Another ObamaCare gotcha!
You didn't hear the president mention any of these and other injustices in his gloat speech following the Supreme Court ruling. You didn't hear him mention that healthcare.gov is still not working properly, securely and efficiently, and that many of the state healthcare exchanges are going bankrupt.
Some of the states that took the subsidy bait are cutting their losses and dumping the problem back onto the federal exchange. Now that the Supremes have ruled the way they did, you can expect more states will do likewise.
You won't hear the president or the Democrats talking about the millions of people who can no longer afford their medications, because the insurance companies are trying to cut costs to make up for the windfall profits they thought they were going to get with "everybody" being forced to buy health insurance. Not everybody can afford to buy health insurance even with subsidies, because they can't afford deductibles as high as $5,000 or more.
You won't hear the president or the Democrats talking about the negative impact SCOTUS-care is having on our economy and the creation of jobs. They just don't count those numbers, because the facts might get in the way of their political agenda, which is to control our lives from cradle to grave, and even beyond thanks to the wonder of death taxes.
President Obama says that with the Supreme Court ruling, the Unaffordable Care Act is here to stay. That means the lies used by Democrats to pass it are here to stay. The denial that ObamaCare made our health care system worse is here to stay. A federal government that does not respect or care about the people's agenda is here to stay.
These injustices are here to stay until a Republican president and Congress can repeal and replace ObamaCare. Democrats have always shown that facts don't matter, and now the Supreme Court majority says words don't matter.
But you will hear the Democrats say the Republicans don't have a better alternative, which is another lie! The Republicans' problem is that they have too many alternatives and they have not united around one plan. This will come about only with a Republican president with the ability to lead and a clear replacement plan, and a strong Republican Congress to help make it happen.
Many Republican voters are skeptical that even a Republican president and a Republican-controlled Congress will repeal and replace ObamaCare. That skepticism is valid and deserved, which means we would have to hold their feet to the fire as I have emphasized many times before.
I'm not ready to concede the future of the United States of America to Mr. Gruber’s "stupidity of the American people". I'm also not ready to concede this country to the liberals who manipulate the ignorance of some voters, and the pure gullibility of others.
Intelligent thinkers! Get off your anchovies and fight! Everybody can do something! Identify what you can do and do it!
We will continue to provide the insight, but you have got to join the fight.
We can elect a strong leader and a strong Congress to work on behalf of the people instead of politics. Until then, these injustices will continue.
That's what SCOTUScare means to all of us.
The recent Supreme Court ruling on health insurance subsidies means they upheld the "stupidity of the American people” (as Jonathan Gruber would say, and has), and for the third time the Court stretched the law instead of interpreting the law.
How the Court arrived at this 6-3 decision has baffled many observers, and the ruling opinion written by Justice Roberts stuns those of us who believe that certain words matter, as Rob said last week.
