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Peter Shumlin, a Democrat governor from one of the most liberal states, made a jaw-dropping admission when he released his much-awaited plan for a single payer health system in Vermont. Shumlin’s proposal called for massive tax increases to pay for the system, which Shumlin himself called “detrimental to Vermonters”. Shumlin stated,
“These are simply not tax rates that I can responsibly support or urge the Legislature to pass. In my judgment, the potential economic disruption and risks would be too great to small businesses, working families and the state’s economy.”
Support for this proposal was tepid at best. His plan, which he eventually submitted after missing two financing deadlines, called for “businesses to take on a double-digit payroll tax, while individuals would face up to a 9.5 percent premium assessment.” Shumlin also stated that federal funding for the transition into such a health system was now expected to be $150 million less than originally planned, a huge amount of money at stake for such a tiny state.
Perhaps feeling the heat from the extremely narrow election in November (which he actually hasn’t officially won yet), Shumlin basically denounced his own proposal as soon as it was released. What’s more, Obamacare is particularly odious in his state right now as well, as Vermont shelled out some $400,000 in taxpayer funds to Jonathan Gruber, for health care “consulting”.
Shumlin is finally learning that, with socialism, you eventually run out of other people’s money.
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Friday before Election Day, the Obama Administration via the Department of Education released a “gainful employment” rule applicable to higher education, which singles out a particular type of learning institution: the for-profit school. The new regulation will prohibit students from being able to receive federal student aid “unless the program can show that their graduates’ annual loan payments do not exceed 20% of discretionary income, or 8% of total earnings.” The Department of Education essentially surmises that for-profit schools do not produce quality programs.
Basically this new rule will throw many for-profit colleges out of business. It’s not the first time a regulation of this kind has been issued, either. A federal court struck down the first attempt put forth by the Administration back in 2012. And yet, this newer version is more stringent — with 7 times as many programs likely to not pass standards/criteria for “gainful employment” now. The estimate is that around 1,400 programs educating 840,000 persons will fail the new magical threshold.
The Administration has stated that the goal of the new rule is to “protect students”, and that the rule is necessary “to ensure that colleges accepting federal funds protect students, cut costs and improve outcomes.” However, the rule is not applicable to public and nonprofit institutions. When pressed for the double standard during a congressional hearing on the topic last spring, Education Secretary Arne Dune said that “development of the college rating systems would address the rest of higher education”. That is a cop-out.
So here we have an Administration interfering with the ability of adults to pursue the educational path that best fits their needs by limiting their choices through the deliberate withholding of financial aid assistance from certain schools or programs that the government deems unfit. The government has chosen to redefine the term “gainful employment” in such a way that many career pathways will now be closed at a myriad of institutions that have previously educated many — especially a large number of poor and/or minority persons. These students quite often lack parental financial assistance anyway, and now removing the option for financial aid adds another barrier to upward mobility.
This ridiculous regulation was opposed in a signed letter by 18 members each of both the Republican and Democrat parties last spring, many of whom are minorities, citing their concerns for its adverse affect on low income students and those from non traditional backgrounds. However, their non-partisan approach fell on deaf ears.
Our country has many options for education — some students thrive a four year public institution; others, a community college or small private school and still others, a for-profit institution. Though Obama has consistently championed college education, this rules changes will make it harder, not easier, for a segment of the population to become a college graduate.
Another troubling aspect is how the rule measures debt. The WSJ points out that, “if the department were merely trying to protect students, then Mr. Obama’s “Pay As You Earn” plan that caps loan payments at 10% of discretionary income would make the rule moot. This is why the rule doesn’t measure graduates’ actual loan payments, but rather the median amount of debt they incur amortized over 15 years for bachelor’s degrees. Many students take up to 25 years to repay their loans.”
And more: “This economic reality is why the Administration is steering students toward loan forgiveness plans like Pay As You Earn. Grads who find non-gainful employment in government or at a nonprofit can get their loans forgiven after 10 years of modest payments. So the White House is encouraging graduates to pursue low-paying jobs in “public service” even as it punishes for-profit colleges whose graduates do precisely that.”
The Administration is once again picking winners and losers, this time in the realm of education. The new rule essentially encourages students to pursue their education — but only at places whose programs and operations are subsidized by taxpayer dollars.
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Is Executive Amnesty is inexplicably tied to Obamacare?
On Monday of last week, the New York Times reported that Health and Human Secretary, Sylvia Burwell, projected 9.1 million enrollees in Obamacare by the end of the year. This is in stark contrast to the original projections by the Congressional Budget Office, which “had estimated that 13 million people would be enrolled next year, with the total rising to 24 million in 2016”.
The New York Times also noted that, “in the past, the White House has used the budget office numbers as a benchmark for success under the Affordable Care Act.”
Currently, enrollment stands at 7.1 million, down from the 8 million touted last year by Obama. This reduction stems from persons who failed to pay premiums or could not prove their identity and therefore considered ineligible.
Additionally, HHS curiously forecasted that “most of the new marketplace enrollment for 2015 is likely to come from the ranks of the uninsured,” and less likely from persons who had already been paying for their own insurance without the marketplace.
If enrollment is lagging so badly behind expectations, how could Obama possibly salvage numbers for Obamacare so that it could show a modicum of “success under the Affordable Care Act”?
Answer: Executive Amnesty.
Early estimates have put those who might benefit from Obama’s amnesty plan to be 3-5 million, a number that would neatly fit the amount necessary to bolster the fledgling Obamacare, which was Obama’s signature policy.
Now, if one goes to the healthcare.gov website, and hovers over the “Get Answers” tab, it opens up a tab which includes the section, “Coverage For…” Guess who is first on the list? Immigrants. Immigrants are listed ahead of “Young adults, Self-employed people, Unemployed people, People with disabilities, People with job-based coverage, Military veterans, American Indians & Alaska Natives, Pregnant women, Same-sex married couples, Retirees, and Incarcerated people.” (in that order). So if a immigrant was granted amnesty, the government made it very easy for him or her to get started.
Within the section under “Immigrants”, the website lists 17 types of immigrant status that makes one eligible for Obamacare. Furthermore, six more types of status are eligible if one has applied for a particular immigrant program, and yet another five more status types are able to enroll in Obamacare if they are coupled with employment authorization. That makes 28 types of immigrants who are eligible for an Obamacare plan already.
Now, to be fair, the website explicitly states at the bottom of the page: “Undocumented immigrants aren’t eligible to buy health coverage through the Marketplace. They’re not eligible for premium tax credits or other savings on Marketplace plans.”
However, that’s where Obama’s 10-point Executive Amnesty plan comes in. Under this plan, “President Barack Obama is on the verge of granting executive amnesty and work permits to five million illegal immigrants, including the illegal immigrant parents of children who are American citizens OR previously received executive amnesty under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in 2012.”
Now, the first thing to note about the relationship between amnesty and Obamacare is the part about DACA. On healthcare.gov, it states that “Deferred Action Status” is eligible for Obamacare, but also notes specifically on that same bullet point that “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) is not an eligible immigration status for applying for health insurance”. Now, if Obama implements his Executive Amnesty plan, those currently claiming DACA status will be able to suddenly attain Obamacare — allowing potentially many, many new subscribers here.
Another analysis from HotAir goes further in depth:
“One key piece of the order, officials said, will allow many parents of children who are American citizens or legal residents to obtain legal work documents and no longer worry about being discovered, separated from their families and sent away.
That part of Mr. Obama’s plan alone could affect as many as 3.3 million people who have been living in the United States illegally for at least five years, according to an analysis by the Migration Policy Institute, an immigration research organization in Washington. But the White House is also considering a stricter policy that would limit the benefits to people who have lived in the country for at least 10 years, or about 2.5 million people.
Extending protections to more undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children, and to their parents, could affect an additional one million or more if they are included in the final plan that the president announces.”
Hence, if Executive Amnesty goes through, the warning on the healthcare.gov website regarding undocumented immigrants is no longer applicable to those who would receive protections; thus, they would be eligible to purchase an Obamacare plan.
As it stands now, a large number of legal immigrants are already using Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion. In a report released just this past week from the Center for Immigration Studies, “immigrants have accounted for 42 percent of the growth in Medicaid enrollment since Obamacare began being implemented in 2011”. Furthermore, “The high rate and significant growth in Medicaid associated with immigrants is mainly the result of a legal immigration system that admits large numbers of immigrants with relatively low-levels of education, many of whom end up poor and uninsured.”
2011-2013 have proven to be successful for immigrant-related Obamacare signups; therefore, the likelihood for immigrants who receive amnesty to sign up for an Obamacare plan or product seems relatively high. As a very rough estimate number, if Obama was to grant amnesty to 5 million immigrants, (a middle estimate figure) and assuming the signup rate for Obamacare just among those immigrants is 42% (to stay on trend), then 2.1 million immigrants would sign up.
If HHS is predicting 9.1 million enrolled by the end of the year, and then potentially another 2.1 million can be also factored in, the White House is getting closer to the originally projected figures. Remember, “in the past, the White House has used the budget office numbers as a benchmark for success under the Affordable Care Act”, and the CBO had predicted 13 million by the end of this year, so adding immigrants newly eligible through Executive Amnesty will certainly help to salvage Obamacare numbers.
With the news this morning that Obama will announce Executive Action on immigration this coming Friday, it seems all the more likely that Executive Amnesty is tied to Obamacare. The White House has been mum about how many people have enrolled in the past few days of open enrollment season, suggesting that the number is low. An independent site, acasignups.net, back this assertion.
At this point, no one in the Administration even cares about the cost anymore. It’s all about saving the legislation from abomination, no matter the pricetag or method. That’s probably why the CBO has not even bothered to score the impact of Obamacare on the deficit since 2012 — before Obamacare even began to be fully implemented! Of course, it’s not like anyone really believes either by now that Obamacare won’t add to the deficit.
Therefore, if the numbers so far this year are not meeting even lowered expectations for enrollment, then it is imperative to get the numbers up NOW. That is why Obama has decided to act on Amnesty so soon after Obamacare signups just began again — so stay tuned for Friday, and pay attention to how the Executive action affects immigration and Obamacare.
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Mitch Romney’s appearance on Fox News Sunday the weekend before Election Day confirmed that he should not be a candidate for President in 2016. Indeed, his inability to answer any of Chris Wallace’s questions made it painfully clear why he lost his election bid in 2012.
The first question had to do with the old “outsourcing jobs” bit, which has been an omnipresent theme in several races, such as Quinn for Governor in Illinois, and Perdue for Senate in Georgia. The way Chris Wallace asked about it gave Romney the perfect chance to explain how the outsourcing attack is utter nonsense, but instead, he ignored the question and derided the Democrats for making ad hominem attacks.
Even though the aforementioned candidates won their bid, much of America still honestly believes the “exporting jobs” claim against Republicans — which is why the Democrats tried so hard with it. Had it been a different election cycle, it may very well have stuck better in those race. And Romney missed the opportunity to explain how “outsourcing” those relocated jobs can and do strengthen American business. But he didn’t.
He said nothing about how when the U.S. economy can’t compete in the world market with these lower level jobs here in the US, moving the jobs abroad increases global sales which grow the higher level (administrative, executive, engineering, research and development) jobs remaining here. And nothing about how, in some scenarios, not exporting jobs to stay globally competitive often means, as a result, firing people and closing the business outright. But Romney — the businessman, mind you — ignored all of this and acted as if the other side was right…but just mean.
The second question Romney messed up was in regard to immigration reform. Wallace suggested that the Senate passed a comprehensive plan but that the House GOP refused to pass it. Here, Romney ignored this point again, saying that well, if the GOP gets control of the Senate, they can make immigration laws too. That’s not the point He totally failed to discuss at all how the comprehensive immigration bill was a Democrat style bill which contained provisions unacceptable to the GOP regarding spending and border control. That is the entire reason why it has been rejected soundly by the Republicans.
The last question was in regard to Reince Priebus’ recently published “11 points”. Wallace asked Romney if he thought it was a mistake for the GOP to have made these points. Romney basically ignored it. He could have talked about how, once the elections are over and Republicans victorious, the GOP can move forward. He had the opportunity to build up the Republican brand, to wax poetic about why Republicans are better and use even some of the 11 points to discuss it. But he didn’t. He said nothing.
To use a baseball analogy, it was strike three. Romney is not a good contender. In an arena as easy as Chris Wallace and Fox News Sunday, it was extremely disappointing We need someone that knows how to answer the damn question. To articulate the positions of the GOP on their feet. To prepare the points that need to be made. To get the sentences out swiftly and succinctly. The nominee for 2016 needs to be able to think on his feet, defend liberty, promote prosperity, and speak the principles that we hold dear. Romney has proven, once and for all, that he is unable to do such a thing.
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Romney’s appearance on Fox News Sunday this past weekend confirmed that Romney should not be a candidate for President in 2016. Indeed, his inability to answer any of Chris Wallace’s questions at all made it painfully clear why he lost his election bid in 2012.
The first question had to do with the old “outsourcing jobs” bit, which has been an omnipresent theme in several races, such as Quinn for Governor in Illinois, and Purdue for Senate in Georgia. The way Chris Wallace asked about it gave Romney the perfect chance to explain how the outsourcing attack is utter nonsense, but instead, he virtually ignored the opportunity by not answering and addressing Wallace’s question. All he did was basically state that the Democrats make ad hominem attacks…and that’s about it. Nothing about how those relocated jobs can and do strengthen American business. Nothing about how the U.S. economy can’t support many of these businesses anymore, so they have to go elsewhere. Nothing about how, in some scenarios, not exporting jobs to stay globally competitive often means, as a result, firing people and closing the business outright. But Romney — the businessman, mind you — ignored all of this and acted as if the other side was right.
The second question Romney messed up was in regard to immigration reform. Wallace suggested that the Senate passed a comprehensive plan but that the House GOP refused to pass it. Here, Romney ignored this point again, saying that well, if the GOP gets control of the Senate, they can make immigration laws too. He totally failed to point out that the comprehensive immigration bill was a Democrat style bill which contained provisions unacceptable to the GOP regarding spending and border control.
The last question was in regard to Reince Priebus’ 11 points. Wallace asked Romney if he thought it was a mistake for the GOP to have made these points. Romney basically ignored it. He could have talked about once the elections are won, the GOP can move forward. But he didn’t.
To use a baseball analogy, it was strike three. Romney is not a good contender. We need someone that knows how to answer the damn question, to articulate the positions of the GOP on their feet. To prepare the points that need to be made, get the sentence out swiftly and succinctly. The nominee for 2016 needs to be able to think quickly, defend liberty, promote prosperity, and speak the principles that we hold dear. Romney has proven, once and for all, that he is unable to do such a thing.
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Will the Republicans take the Senate? Election Day Links (to be updated periodically)
Republicans sense power shift; Dems rev up damage control
WASH POST: 97% CHANCE GOP TAKES SENATE
CNN 95%
NYT: 70%
PAPER: Where did O go wrong?
NYT: Irate Electorate…
Most ads on Obamacare…
WH Strategist: Dems Running from President ‘Look Like Chickensh*t’…
Guide to What to Watch for on Election Night…
Harry Reid’s fateful evening…
30 year old Republican set to be youngest congresswoman in history…
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Last week on October 7, it was reported that Liberia’s President, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, asked for more emergency powers to help contain and prevent the current Ebola crisis. Liberia is already under a state of emergency and curfew, which began in August. But according to VOA News:
“In a letter to the Plenary of the House of Representatives and the Senate, Sirleaf asked for powers to amend seven different articles under the constitution, including freedom of movement, speech, religion, confiscation of private property, and elections.”
Besides asking for extra powers, and citing the current “state of emergency”, President Sirleaf then proceeded on October 8th to suspend nationwide elections for Senate due to be held later this month. Yahoo News reported that,
“Almost three million voters had been due to take part in Senate polls on Tuesday but organisers said there was no way a “mass movement, deployment and gathering of people” could go ahead without endangering lives.”. A presidential proclamation claimed the state of emergency allowed her to “to suspend… any and all rights ordinarily exercised, enjoyed and guaranteed to citizens.”
You can read her power request letter here.
One chilling request is that “the president has asked for a temporary extension of the state of emergency removing a constitutional right to make public speeches which could “undermine” the response to the epidemic.”
Opposition to the election suspension was swift. Tokpa Mulbah, a member of the House of Representatives from the People Unification Party, stated that “The Chief Executive, Madam Sirleaf, does not have that constitutional authority to make such a pronouncement. So based on that, we will be drafting a resolution Thursday to be sent to the Liberian Senate for a vote and placed in front Madam Sirleaf to sign so that the Elections Commission can go ahead to conduct elections from now till December 30 so that come second Tuesday in January the new 15 senators will be able to take their seats.”
In fact, the House went on to vote to reject Sileaf’s request “for more powers to restrict freedom of Movements, speech, religion, assembly and of the press, as well as property rights, through a motion filed by Representative Brown. Both Houses, in a Joint Resolution passed on Friday, October 10, 2014, unanimously voted to overturn a President Sirleaf’s decision to indefinitely cancel the October 14 Mid Term Senatorial elections.”
Is is unclear if the Senate concurred with the House. According to AllAfrica, the Senate is torn and is still debating.
Freedom of the Press has also been under attack since the curfew. Apparently, “journalists were not included on a list of exempted professions able to move freely around the country at night. (They were added six days later.) In early October, citing privacy concerns, the government announced that reporters could be arrested for speaking with Ebola patients or photographing treatment centers without written permission from the health ministry.” Further information regarding the freedom of the press during the Ebola crisis can be found here.
Liberia spent two decades of civil war, and the election of President Sirleaf was seen as a more stable, constitutional rule. Liberians should reject this attempted power grab, even in the midst of such a tragic time in their country, in order to safeguard their liberties for the long-haul.
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The idea of “disparate impact” is a cancer that has taken root in the business world. If we do not focus on substantially curbing or ending it, it will continue to grow, extorting huge sums from innocent companies, creating an enormous economic burden on society, and allowing the tort bar to run amok.
There are many areas in business where charges of “discrimination”, often regarding race, could and are being made every day. Employment and mortgage origination are two of the most prevalent. The law requires – as it should -that for a company to be guilty of such discrimination, there must be an intent to discriminate.
But government agencies have found a way to overrule that requirement by developing the idea of “disparate impact”. Disparate impact is the concept which allows if a protected class of citizens has a statistically lesser representation with respect to a business (hiring, mortgages origination, etc) it may be implied that the business has intentionally discriminated — because there is an adverse impact as a result. This is clearly irrational, since there may be many economic, societal, and local reasons for the particular statistical representation. Unfortunately, disparate impact puts the burden to show lack of discrimination on the employer, meaning he is guilty until proven innocent. In fact, in order for an employer to defend himself against such a charge, he would have to show that the “offending rule or practice” was a “business necessity”.
Though I find this concept outrageous, the federal and state governments and their agencies seem to love it lately. I therefore believe that they should be equally adamant in applying the concept of disparate impact in the public sector.
The IRS scandal has shown the clear practice of targeting conservative groups applying for 501c4 status (despite the subsequent cover up). By applying disparate impact theory to this situation, the charge of intentional discrimination would most certainly apply because there is no “business necessity” in the policy the IRS employed.
The Obama administration, having complete control and responsibility for the Department of the Treasury and its Internal Revenue Service is therefore guilty of such intentional discrimination. In particular, President Obama’s specific response, that there has been no evidence that anyone directed anyone to intentionally target conservatives, does not insulate him from being actually guilty.
The current administration has been keen on applying disparate impact theory to a number of private companies, and appears intent on ramping up the practice. For example, Obama’s labor secretary pick, Thomas Perez, has been particularly lucrative in this regard. Last summer, National Review Online (NRO) covered some of Perez’s cases in recent years, noting that Perez “has applied that theory vigorously to force large settlements from financial companies even in cases where there was no evidence of actual racial discrimination”. In other words, employers can be sought after for violating the law whether or not they intended to do wrong.
The White House in general, and Perez in particular, like disparate impact theory because it, as NRO notes, it “sets a very low bar for proving discrimination. Under it, prosecutors need not prove intent, merely that minorities have suffered a disparate impact from some action”. And this is a person Obama added to his Presidential Cabinet.
If disparate impact can be applied to the private sector, it should also — in the spirit of fairness and equality, of course — be applied to the IRS. Particular groups were adversely singled out and subject to excessive, burdensome, and overreaching scrutiny; of this we are certain. The targeting of conservatives was a concerted effort to slow down or dissuade the creation of their tax-exempt groups. Even if we no longer have tangible evidence of a White House link because of lost, missing, or destroyed emails and Blackberrys, it doesn’t really matter anyway under disparate impact theory. Intent needs not to be proved in court; merely the act of discrimination is enough.
Based on the White House’s unmitigated belief of their ability to use disparate impact against companies for questionable practices, the rule should be applied to the IRS for its questionable practices as well. Since the IRS falls directly under the purview of the Executive Branch, why is the President of the United States therefore not directly responsible and culpable for the IRS abuse?
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One month ago (in June), the topic of immigration was at 5%.
Today? It’s 17%. According to a Gallup poll released a few days ago, immigration has surged to the top of the list as “the Most Important U.S. Problem”. This replaces “dissatisfaction with government” (16%).
Two other tidbits to glean from this poll: (1) the issue is higher among Republicans (23%) than Democrats (11%); and (2) older Americans (over 50) are more likely than younger Americans (under 50) to cite immigration as the top issue.
So, while this poll shows us what Americans are now talking about, even more importantly is what they aren’t talking about anymore — major scandals such as those involving the IRS, the VA, and even the situation in Iraq, among others (most of those can probably be filed under “dissatisfaction with government”).
The IRS and VA scandals are particularly scathing to the administration. Is it any wonder why, at the very time when the heat began to turn up on these two issues, the immigration surge began. Those very demographics — Republicans and older Americans — who are most likely to be incensed at the IRS and VA scandals are now the ones even more incensed at the immigration issue…so that they are no longer focused on the IRS and VA.
The poll concluded: “the fact that the issue is of particular concern to Republicans and older Americans — both groups that Republicans need to turn out in force in the midterms — could be critical to the outcome.”
The poll is likely correct, but in a different sort of way. Even the IRS scandal and the VA scandal made many Democrats squirm as well as Republicans, so there was no way to pit one group against the other for political gain. With the immigration surge, however, it is a bit more partisan, and creates a better opportunity for the Democrats to target the Republicans on this issue (and vice versa) — precisely in time for election season.
In fact, the Washington Times noted last week,
“Perhaps one particular decision by the White House highlights how concerned the administration is about public reaction: As of now, not a single illegal-alien detainee seems to have been sent to Louisiana or Arkansas, the states bordering Texas that are closest to the site of the border deluge. This is no accident. Those two states have Democratic senators up for re-election who are vulnerable enough to lose, but who might still be able to prevail. The White House appears to have decided not to send any illegals there to avoid the potential for political damage.”
The White House is keenly aware of not “letting this crisis go to waste”. They have carefully chosen not to send immigrants to states with vulnerable Democrat elections so that they will avoid arousing the Republican/elderly electorate on Election Day.
On the other hand, those who are concerned about the immigrant surge are already being painted as “anti-children”, “heartless”, etc. Those sentiments are certain to be repeated during the election cycle.
At least one group thinks that this crisis is contrived. The National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers (NAFBPO), which issued a statement in early June, essentially stating that surge of immigrants, including minors, crossing our border “is not a humanitarian crisis. It is a predictable, orchestrated and contrived assault on the compassionate side of Americans by her political leaders that knowingly puts minor illegal alien children at risk for purely political purposes.”
The immigration surge is less about immigration than it is about deflection. If the Obama Administration can have a large part of the electorate — especially Republicans and elderly — refocus on something big other than the IRS scandal, VA scandal, and more, then they can be out of scrutiny on those particularly damning issues for at least the time being.
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A federal appeals panel handed down a ruling this morning that could be problematic for Obamacare. As just reported, “A judicial panel in a 2-1 ruling said such subsidies can be granted only to those people who bought insurance in an Obamacare exchange run by an individual state or the District of Columbia — not on the federally run exchange HealthCare.gov.” You can read the entire appeal here.
This is the eagerly awaited Halbig case. The crux of the case lies in the wording of the actual bill of Obamacare, which specifically lists state exchanges as a source of subsidies.
There is no mention of federal exchanges in Obamacare. This was created merely by an IRS rule authorizing the subsidies in federal exchanges. If upheld, it could affect millions of Obamacare enrollees. The article notes,
“the ruling could lead many, if not most of those subsidized customers to abandon their health plans sold on HealthCare.gov because they no longer would find them affordable without the often-lucrative tax credits. And if that coverage then is not affordable for them as defined by the Obamacare law, those people will no longer be bound by the law’s mandate to have health insurance by this year or pay a fine next year.
If there were to be a large exodus of subsidized customers from the HealthCare.gov plans, it would in turn likely lead to much higher premium rates for non-subsidized people who would remain in those plans, who are apt as a group to be in worse health than all original enrollees.”
The government will most certainly file a full review in U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Regardless of the eventual outcome of the case here’s the salient point to take away.
When you look at the plain wording of the actual bill, it really doesn’t make any sense (e.g. common sense). Here we have a perfect example of the Democrats trying — and ultimately succeeding — to push something through without looking at it or even carefully thinking through the implications of the words and provisions. That is not a “glitch”. That is disdain.
Obamacare was drafted badly, and they couldn’t even get it corrected the proper way because of the crookedness by which it was passed. Now we have a stupid mistake that the judiciary is being asked to fix. And that’s the problem.
What the government is asking the courts to do is to ignore the literal wording of the law. On the other hand, if the literal wording is indeed upheld, the immediate effect of a reversal is going to be extremely terrible.
Think about it: the IRS will have to go after people for refunds of tax credits. That will be a messy and slow and heated endeavor. Many people, especially poor people, are going to argue that they wouldn’t have used Obamacare insurance if it wasn’t for the subsidies. From a tactical perspective, such a scenario is not necessarily good for conservative or libertarians either, because it sets up the sound-byte narratives that conservatives and libertarians are “taking away your health care”, “they hate the poor, etc”, which will most certainly be used ad nauseam by the Democrats. Is it worth it?
My heart of hearts wants literal side to win, but at the same time, I’m not entirely convinced that its the best thing in the long run. Yet, if the government wins, it reinforces the precedent we’ve been seeing that it is okay to ignore the actual wording of the law passed by Congress. That most certainly is not okay.
This case perfectly highlights the stupidity and utter contempt for which the Democrats have of procedure and law, as seen in the problems with the entire Obamacare bill.
UPDATE: Allahpundit reminds us that the 4th Circuit upheld the Obamacare subsidies for federal exchange consumers.
So…which is it? Is it the intent of the law or the text of the law? Stay tuned on this one.
