Discussion: Olympia Snowe Undermines Supreme Court Case Against Obamacare

Discussion for article #236761

“Why would we have wanted to deny people subsidies? It was not their fault if their state did not set up an exchange”

Really? She must have missed the memo where her own party was a cult of spite-driven sociopaths that don’t give a shit about things like an adequate healthcare system or the political fallout of watching people die from lack of coverage. Olympia, your party does want people to lose their subsidies. They do want people to die as a result. That’s been the goal for 5+ years.

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Exactly! Same reason you’d want to deny them health care, liar.

Snowe’s statement provides more support against the plaintiff’s desperate attempt to take down Obamacare. One can only hope that facts matter to this SCOTUS.

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I don’t know that they WANT people to die, but they’re certainly willing to accept that as collateral damage in their war against progress.

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This from a person who said when voting for health care reform in committee, “When history calls, history calls”, except when it came time for a vote on the floor history wasn’t calling anymore so she, like ALL of her Republican colleagues, voted against it.

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Perhaps, she might finally be useful to health care reform. I’d hoped I’d never see her face again after all the lobbying of her that was done and related media attention.

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It’s the plaintiffs in this case, King (Burwell is Secretary of Health and Human Services), who people ought to be unloading on, four of the dumbest people on earth who were handpicked by the American Enterprise Institute to object to healthcare and sign on as “ordinary people.” None of them knew much about what they were protesting except it had to do with The Black Man.

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It does not MATTER what EVERY SINGLE SENATOR and Aid in Washington thinks. It only matters what the 5 Opus Dei members of the SCOTUS think that the Federalist Society WANTS them to rule.

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“Olympia Snowe Undermines Supreme Court Case Against Obamacare”

Sigh. You say that as if the majority of he SCOTUS relies on facts and reality to make its decisions rather than insisting that reality is what they wish it to be and then making rulings designed to force their preferred reality upon us.

Snowe’s statements undermine nothing other than, perhaps, the MSM’s reporting and honesty on the subject.

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Unless (ex)Senator Snowe’s “testimony” was entered in a brief to the SCOTUS, her interview is meaningless to the pending decision. Why is this even “news”???

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Astonishingly, “they” want the very TeaBaggers who vote for them to suffer as well, because nearly all of their policies are for the 0.001%.

And “they” are the people who vote against their best interests.

I do hear people talking the line that “better off” Baggers actually do benefit from 0.001% policies, thus invalidating the claim that Baggers vote against their best interests.

You know what?

Repub policies are a gigantic vacuum cleaner, taking in wealth UPWARD. If you are a $400,000 a-year Bagger, more power to you.

But you are still being had by a $4,000,000-a-year 0.001%er oligarch, all while you are traveling using delapidated, out-of-date bridges and transport systems.

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I am not even sure her statements would matter in a brief to the SCOTUS. Typically statutory interpretation involves looking at the plain language of the statue and then, if necessary, the legislative history. Statements made by a Senator years later do not constitute legislative history. There is simply nothing that she could say or do now that would “undermine the Supreme Court case against Obamacare.”

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Gee, Olympia - have you ever MET any of those Republicans you served with?

Or are you just the most naive person on the planet?

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Huh? She worked on the bill, and is now saying that the case in front of SCOTUS is bogus.

A simple thank you would suffice. Of course, SCOTUS had their minds made up when they agreed to take this ridiculous case in the first place. But if they find for the plaintiffs, her interview simply confirms once again that they are corrupt.

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This is known as, missing the point. She could’ve spoken out years ago and at least before the SC decided to hear this flaming pile of poop of a case. She is pounding her head against a wall at this juncture.
Now that its too late, its all about face saving.

The court is concerned with only one thing and that is what all the f-ed up right wingers want, to hurt Obama and to deny him a legacy. From the bottom to the top, the Repubs only care about this. If they all suffer in some way or another, including death, they will still go forward with the dumbest of the dumb because they are blinded by hate and sheer meanness. There is no kryptonite and common sense or shame aren’t making the slightest dent.

Whatever happens, the court has shown its ass and the deterioration of the Republican Party hasn’t abated in the slightest.

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I don’t get that. SCOTUS decisions are based all the time on what they say the originators of the Constituion intended. Although they disagree, they say that the original intentions are everything.

Well, unlike the authors of the Constitution, the people who wrote this act are alive. It is ridiculous and disingenuous for the Supremes to essentially, say what was meant based on their own opinions when the authors are around the corner!!!

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With regard to statutory interpretation, legislative intent is demonstrated by what was said at or before the time of a bill’s passage into law. There generally also must be some evidence that an individual law maker’s statements are not merely his or her own opinions but were statements that were considered by the House or Senate as a whole. After the fact statements, such as this one, by individual Senators are inherently unreliable because individual law makers could claim that a statute was given certain interpretations before passage, when it was not. This is black letter law stuff on statutory interpretation supported by hundreds of cases.

Typically it is a system that works and makes sense for the purpose of establishing legislative intent. However, the problem here is that we have a Supreme Court that seems dead set on substituting its own interpretation for the ACA rather than actually determining and effectuating the legislative intent.

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Technically the comment won’t be considered unless the government makes an extraordinary request to supplement the record post argument. That means it probably won’t be considered.

That said, any reasonable person would see there is no reason “to deny people subsidies. It wasn’t their fault the state did not set up an exchange.”

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The question here has never been ambiguous language. That’s just the pretense. Everyone knows that all parties involved clearly understood what was meant by “the state.” I guarantee you that SCOTUS will not overturn this law because of ambiguous language. They’ll overturn it because they have been given the opportunity to do so.

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