Discussion: A SCOTUS Ruling Against Obamacare Would Pose 2016 Dilemma For GOP

All they have to do is remove those three words “by the states”. Maybe get rid of “established” too, just to protect against rogue judges. It would take a good 20 minutes in each house of congress. But the democratic messaging on this should already have started.

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A ruling against ACA subsidies is simply a GOTP slap at the swing states for not supporting them. The “scales will fall from the voters’ eyes” and they will repent by voting people like Huck and Piyush foreer and ever, Amen.

Meanwhile in my district, the local GOTP chair is looking to turn out our local Congressman (a member of the Hell No caucus who voted against ending the shutdown) for voting for John Boehner back to the Speakership.

The Teahadi pimp hand is strong.

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Remember how the Republicans in the Alabama legislature were never, in a million years, going to pass their crazed legislation against undocumented aliens because of the damage it would do to agricultural interests in the state? And then they did it anyway, it was as big a disaster as predicted and those same interests put money into their pockets and got them all reelected anyway? Remember how Republicans in Congress were never, in a million years, going to push us to the brink of default because the powerful business interests were never, in a million years, going to let them do that a second time and then they did it anyway and the powerful business interests put money into their pockets and got them reelected anyway? Remember that time Republicans were going to reach out to hispanics after the 2012 debacle, spent the next two years verbally assaulting them and then expanded their majority in the House and took over the Senate? Oh, and remember that time when the voters were going to punish them for the shutdown and Kansas voters were going to punish Brownback for the debacle he created?

See, the problem here is that Republicans have somehow transcended the normal functioning of both democracy and plutocracy and, instead, managed to engineer a world where symbols and dogma alone will get them reelected regardless of what they do.

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You sure you’re replying to mickeyg? Because I don’t see it - just a formless rant against the racist pricks that make up a large part of the Rethug base. But mickeyg’s comment had little, if anything, to do with that.

And it’s “willy-nilly,” by the way.

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A problem for Republicans in 2016? How so? I see it playing out like this:

“You’ve lost your subsidies. That’s what happens when you get a Democrat health care bill. They shouldn’t have rammed Obamacare down our throats in the first place. The free market can fix these problems.”

…and then people will believe them and vote Republican. Because that’s how it always seems to work.

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Why don’t the Dems do an end-run on this and propose it themselves, or would that give SCOTUS more ammunition? I really can’t understand how they can say that the “intention” of the law was such and such…as though they can’t just ASK THE PEOPLE WHO WROTE IT!!!

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Verb vs. noun is a hard one?

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Sad but true.

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I’d call this report evidence-based wishful thinking. I wish the evidence would change Republicans’ minds, but it won’t. We’re fast approaching the 5 year anniversary of President Obama signing the ACA and the 5 year, 2 hour anniversary of Republicans suing to take people’s health insurance away.

I think Democrats could use a Gingrich-style bomb thrower, only without the corruption, sleaze, infidelity or wrong ideas. Republicans are the party of suing to take away your health insurance. Repeat.

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But there’s no demonstrated correlation between “Exchange Customers Early 2015” and “Presidential Vote Gap 2012” which seems to be the key assumption of the analysis.

Perhaps a column that shows the percentage of the population that votes by state, multiplying that by the number of exchange customers in the state, and comparing that against the vote gap might make more sense. Or am I off base here? I mean, even then it may not be an accurate view since that assumes that exchange customers vote in the same proportion as the general population, which may not be the case.

Second, it’s my understanding that there’s a “subsidy” and there’s a “tax credit.” I don’t think they’re synonymous. I believe what’s being attacked in the tax credit.

It’s a full-on confusion tsunami!

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You beat me to it. When have the Rethugs - in anything approaching a local contest (and I consider Senate elections quasi-local) – paid ANY serious price for fucking the middle or lower class? Oh, right, McTurtle got his ass stomped because he was trying to kill KYNECT, so I guess I’m wrong. And former Governor Scott Walker also shows that I’m wrong.

And when their decades-old dream of killing Social Security comes true, after President Jeb Bush signs their bill okaying that murder, the Rethugs will REALLY get hammered at the polls. That is, if anyone other than true-red voters is allowed to vote.

I swear, Sahil, I’m going to nominate you for the “Joan Vennochi Perpetually Clueless Award.”

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I think they waited awhile before suing. First they had to vote to repeal it 40-plus times, then they realized they could multitask. Efforts to fuck over the middle class are not zero-sum – you don’t have to sacrifice one effort in order to try something else.

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“The battle could ultimately turn on whether Republicans devise a viable health care solution of their own”

Yeah because they’ve only had 6 years to do that, and failed.

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Seriously.

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Both are verbs and both are nouns.

“His affect was affected by the medication he was taking.”

“The ACA effected change in health insurance, which was a beneficial effect for most.”

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If I had even the tiniest confidence in the political skills and testicular fortitude of the geniuses who run the Democratic Party in D.C. I might be inclined to agree that repeal is dangerous for the GOPers. Since Democrats by and large wouldn’t have a clue how to market meth to a convention of jittery tweakers in Harlan County whose pockets were all stuffed with fifties, I’m not sure there’s any particular fallout for the Republicans.

Even aside from Democratic incompetence at the retail political level, look at what happened in the Christian Republic of Brownbackistan—his policies cratered the budget in Kansas, and the sensible voters of the Jayhawk State voted him back for another term. The good voters of Iowa replaced a solid, long-time farm state progressive with a clueless wingnut clone of Sarah Palin. Scott Walker’s first term was littered with obvious examples of corruption and political chicanery, and he was returned to office. John Kasich was returned to office. Paul Broun was replaced by a guy who might be even nuttier than Broun is. The same with Michele Bachmann.

In other words, I think the political damage of being a Republican lunatic is vastly overstated by Democrats and progressives.

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Hell, they don’t even pay a price for fucking over the would-be plutocrats. They’ve somehow managed to completely decouple actions from electoral consequences. A big part of that “somehow” is, of course, Fox News and Hate Radio that manufacture a base-mobilizing orgy of racism, fear and hate in the six weeks before every general election. And the rest seems to be that our .1%'ers will endure any injury without complaint or action other than having their fee-fee’s hurt by an episode of private lèse-majesté and a few public words of mild reproach by a Democratic president.

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The Republican Supreme Court of the United States Inc. will take their orders from the ruling Plutocrats.

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I heard a rumor that the Republican Congress with the blessing of the Republican Senate was going to pass legislation to bring Single Payer Healthcare to the working public in an act of compassion for the working citizens of the USA. They are also going to cut the massive, bloated military budget to pay for healthcare and higher education and pass a massive tax increase on the filthy rich tax cheaters. Pass it on.

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I also thought, “Whut?”

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