Discussion for article #232574
Oh they’ll fix it. And the price will be lots of the parts of the law that benefit consumers.
We have a SCOTUS that has deliberately enabled the Koch bros to buy our government lock, stock and barrel. I guess we have to assume the GOP optimism that SCOTUS will gut Obamacare is probably well founded based on recent experience. If the GOP doesn’t really care about polling on hot button issues, like immigration, why would they even care about a poll like this one? It is, after all, a poll including the largely powerless 47% that they revile.
Large Majority Wants Congress To Fix Possible Obamacare Subsidies Gap
Which is another way of saying that a large majority of Americans is going to get screwed (again) by the Republican Congress. And yet they continue to elect Republicans to Congress. America – a nation of masochists.
Why would republicans miss a chance to see millions of Americans lose their health insurance and die quickly?
I tend to think the strategy here after the SCOTUS guts the ACA, is for the GOP to fiddle with it, correct the one sentence, remove a few other things they really don’t like (risk corridors, medical equipment tax, etc.) and then pass it…braying loudly how they saved America’s healthcare from the incompetence of Democrats. Oh, and definitely make enough changes so they can start calling it something else besides Obamacare.
Taking away healthcare insurance from millions of Americans is not a winning strategy in a presidential election cycle. Doubly so when your party is going to be looking for all those donations from the insurance and medical fields. And they aren’t that stupid. Proclaiming themselves the Savior of American Healthcare is much more in line.
HaHa. Punked again by Obama: the GOP will have to fix the hated healthcare legislation named now and forever after a Democrat.
What?!? People don’t want to lose their health insurance?!? What a surprise!
First, I continue to cross my fingers that SCOTUS has enough brain cells left to divine the original intent of Congress and not mess with things.
But if they do not, my view is that
(A) the public isn’t really paying a lot of attention to this and don’t really have much sense of the chaos that would ensue if the Court does agree with the plaintiffs.
(B) The GOP is so divided on what to do about this if it happens, that the likelihood of passing some remedy is remote if not impossible. A significant part of the GOP got elected to gut Obamacare…not to replace it, and Sen. Cruz will be handing out the red hot pokers to anybody in the wacky wing who gets cold feet.
© And finally, I am waiting to see just how much hell the GOP would face if Obamacare gets knocked down by the courts and the public (again not paying much attention now) discovers that that health care coverage they now can have but could soon lose, is likely going to be replaced by reverting to the OLD system with its pre-existing conditions, skyrocketing premiums and preferential coverage to the wealthy.
The bottom line, I am guessing, is that the GOP is so fixated on gutting Obamacare that, as Charlie Pierce so often notes when watching Marco Rubio walk across the lawn, they fail to see the rake lying there. WHAP!!!
…as if large majorities affected McConnell and his SenateSonsOfMitches…
Duh - You cannot buy a “Federal” plan you must buy a plan under the state that you live in, hence legally there is no “such” thing as a Federal owned exchange!
This site, the media, and the Democrats have all fallen into the trap of making this outrageous claim “legitimate” by not pointing to this text in the ACA over and over again where the legal word “such” makes the Federal government an agent for the state owned exchange.
c) Failure To Establish Exchange or Implement Requirements-
(1) IN GENERAL- If–
(A) a State is not an electing State under subsection (b); or
(B) the Secretary determines, on or before January 1, 2013, that an electing State–
(i) will not have any required Exchange operational by January 1, 2014; or
(ii) has not taken the actions the Secretary determines necessary to implement–
(I) the other requirements set forth in the standards under subsection (a); or
(II) the requirements set forth in subtitles A and C and the amendments made by such subtitles;
the Secretary shall (directly or through agreement with a not-for-profit entity) establish and operate such Exchange within the State and the Secretary shall take such actions as are necessary to implement such other requirements.
Obama better hold firm on this. I don’t mind if he gives them some small token like the medical device tax, but anything substantial will piss me off royally. He should threaten a veto, state that there will be no negotiations because it is clear what Congress’ intent was when they originally passed it and then sit back and let the GOP/Teatrolls stretch their necks on the nearest tree branch. There will be a majority in the House and the Senate willing to vote to change the language to stop this completely ridiculous semantic game and the only way for the GOP/Teatrolls to stop it is to filibuster any vote or use their majority powers to block any attempts to do so…for example, like changing the discharge petition rules of the House to prevent anyone from forcing a vote on a Senate bill if one passes. Obama needs to CALL THEIR BLUFF. Period. The warning shoudl eb very clear and concise from the get-go: “NOTHING is on the table other than your balls and a cleaver, and what we do with them is your choice.”
NO QUARTER.
Perhaps. It’s not “real” enough yet. Funny thing about actually losing subsidies and the health insurance they pay for though: it really gets peoples’ attention.
since when have the republicon party lixstened to the american people and what they want??? common sence gun laws…nope…common sence energy policy…nope the war in iraq …nope as usual they only listen to those who fund their campaingnes
I think you need to differentiate a little better. Nobody here is calling this silly semantic game “legitimate,” nor is acknowledging the problem it has created and the real danger it poses a way of treating it as such. The “legitimate” thing is the threat that this plaintiff’s argument has created because it was presented to corrupt, self-serving bench-politicians who concocted an argument that ignores all sorts of precedent to produce the result the plaintiff and the conservative machine desired AND PLANNED (and I have no doubt in my mind after reading the DC CIrcuit opinion that the judges were in on it in some fashion). The drafting on this section of the ACA was poor enough to create ambiguity. We all know how it should be resolved. However, political hacks in black robes who want to play at being willfully obtuse were thereby given sufficient room in which to put on their show and THAT is a legitimate threat.
And even more want it fixed and the whole damn law improved but most don’t know it yet.
Obamacare is a winner and pitting the Republicans against affordable health care is genius, plain and simple.
Agree, and I would caution the Republicans to be careful of what they wish for. This will certainly put them on the spot.
And yet they continue not to vote in midterm elections, letting less than 20% of eligible voters inflict us with a Republican Congress.
FIFY. If only we could fix the turnout problem as easily.
Yup, that’s one of my worries about this: they’ll exploit the opening to weaken the law while trumpeting their “fix” as a “replacement” for the terrible Obamacare, which proves you can’t trust Democrats to change a light bulb. I literally had a nightmare about it. (Yes, I’m well aware of how pathetically politically obsessed that makes me sound.)
Amen to your optimism. And if Roberts foresees the aftermath the same way, we may just get lucky wrt your crossed fingers.