The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to hear a lawsuit on the Affordable Care Act, King v. Burwell, brought by Republicans seeking to revoke the health-insurance of 7.3 million Americans whose premiums are paid by government subsidies under the ACA. The lawsuit is based on a snippet of poorly constructed language in the law that suggests subsidies can only be granted to people who live in states that operate their own insurance exchanges.
After the law passed, Republican governors in more than 30 states opted not to build exchanges, thus requiring the federal government to step in and build the websites. Opting out was a cynical political tactic that put the governors’ desire to hobble the president’s reform law over the interests of millions of their uninsured constituents. Now, if the Supreme Court rules in Republicans’ favor on King v. Burwell, the vast majority of people whose subsidized insurance is at risk are residents of states where Republican governors forced the feds to step in and build exchanges.
What a neat trick.
Republican objections to Obamacare have been partisan, not principled, from the start. The Affordable Care Act was based on the individual mandate, which was developed by the Heritage Foundation, a Republican think tank. The ACA was modeled after a statewide system implemented by Mitt Romney, the GOP’s 2012 presidential nominee, when he was governor of Massachusetts. If the Republican majority on the Supreme Court rules in favor of this latest partisan ploy, subsidies in 36 states will be revoked and millions of working-class and self-employed Americans will no longer be able to afford insurance. Experts say this mass collapse of revenue will kill the program, sooner rather than later.
By killing Obamacare, Republicans will finally achieve their ultimate goal of degrading the president’s legacy by destroying his signature achievement, even though pulling off this political coup will jeopardize the health and financial stability of their own constituents.
There is a word for this for this sort of thing.
Here’s an explainer from Ezra Klein at Vox.com:
More info from Vox.com HERE.
It’s funny when it suites them the intent of the writers of the law is the most important thing in a ruling. That is why the Federalist papers, showing the intent of one or maybe just a few individuals during the formative time of our country when the Constitution was being debated and seeking to be approved is so important to Republicans. But in this instance, it will not be intent but a technical reading of the wording of the law that is clearly an oversight or mistake.