I have been reading a lot of bullshit articles in recent weeks about how the GOP will come up with a “fix” to extend the subsidies in the Affordable Care Act aka “ObamaCare” in the federal exchange should the U.S. Supreme Court actually rule in favor of the radical theory of statutory construction made by the plaintiffs in King v. Burwell.
What is wrong with the media villagers who write this crap? Some Tea-Publican says, “oh, we’re working on a plan,” and like a good little stenographer they parrot what was said, as if there was any semblance of truth to this lie.
Well, today this bullshit lie was laid to rest. The TanMan, Weeper of the House John Boehner, the “Worst. Speaker. Ever.,” declared with his usual drunken bombast, “We are not interested in protecting a fundamentally broken law.” Boehner pushes back on ObamaCare subsidies extension:
At a press conference Thursday, Boehner was asked why a House GOP plan included repeal of the individual mandate, which would just be “veto-bait” for President Obama, and why Republicans would not just extend subsidies through the presidential election while looking for concessions elsewhere in exchange.
“Clearly, we’re interested in protecting those millions of Americans who could lose their subsidies. But, as I said, we are not interested in protecting a fundamentally broken law,” Boehner said.
Pressed on the point, Boehner responded, “We have an obligation to do what our constituents ask of us.”
By “constituents,” he means the conservative media entertainment complex that is the GOP. Most Americans want Congress to ensure Obamacare subsidies: poll. They want those Obamacare subsidies, no matter what: poll.
“And I think our position on ObamaCare has been perfectly clear for years now, and frankly has not changed,” he added.
“Our position on ObamaCare has been perfectly clear”: The House has voted more than 50 times to repeal all or portions of ObamaCare. Just today the House voted to repeal the ObamaCare tax on medical devices that is intended to generate billions of dollars for the law. More votes to undermine ObamaCare are scheduled in coming days.
A House Republican plan outlined Wednesday would repeal the law’s mandate requiring everyone buy health insurance, in addition to giving states a choice as to whether they accepted a new block grant of funds or continued receiving insurance subsidies.
House Republican leaders briefed their members on their plan at a meeting Wednesday.
While some Tea-Publicans have said that they want to to extend the subsidies during a transition period to a new health plan — one that the GOP has not proposed in over five years of promising to do so — Arizona’s Rep. Paul Gosar wants to prevent Congress from rescuing ObamaCare insurance subsidies if the Supreme Court strikes them down this month. House bill would prevent extension of ObamaCare subsidies:
Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) rolled out a bill Thursday that would repeal most parts of ObamaCare if the court rules against the government in King v. Burwell.
Unlike recently unveiled plans from House leadership, Gosar’s plan does not include any extension of the subsidies.
That approach was immediately praised by Heritage Action, which has strongly opposed the continuation of the subsidies because they said it will “simply cover up the law’s costs while giving the impression Republicans believe subsidies are necessary for Americans to afford health insurance.”
The group described Gosar’s plan as a “conservative response to King v. Burwell.”
As many as 6.4 million people could lose their ObamaCare aid if the administration loses in court. While Republicans are eager to roll back the law, some fear the sudden loss of the subsidies could take a toll on the party’s electoral chances in 2016.
Gosar announced his plan at a time when many Republicans seem to be coalescing around a path that would temporarily restore ObamaCare subsidies through next fall’s elections.
On Wednesday, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) told members in a closed-door meeting that the leadership plan would allow states to decide for themselves whether they want to keep their subsidies.
Gosar’s opposition to Ryan’s plan is a sign of the tough road ahead for House leadership if ObamaCare loses in court.
The GOP is a political party that is entirely devoid of any good faith. It is a political party devoted to the proposition that only those who have the financial means to pay for health care should receive health care. For the rest of you, the GOP health care plan is “perhaps you should die and decrease the surplus population.”
If the GOP was acting in good faith, this is an issue that is easily remedied by “a one page bill,” as President Obama has said. This is the type of drafting error that is routinely corrected by legislative bodies through “technical amendments” to correct statutory language. It would take a one page bill to correct “four words” that Congress could quite literally pass in a few hours if we had a responsible Congress. But the GOP leadership has already rejected this tried and true remedy. They are hellbent on using a Supreme Court decision as leverage to destroy ObamaCare by any means possible. This plainly exposes their “evil motive and intent” to deny Americans access to affordable health care.
As for the Libertarian lawyers’ radical theory of statutory construction in King v. Burwell, based upon their fabricated record of congressional intent in this case, it would radically alter the long-established rules of statutory construction if accepted as a general principle by the U.S. Supreme Court. It would literally call into question thousands of federal court precedents based upon existing rules of statutory construction, and open those precedents to relitigation. It would undermine the rule of law.
This is the lengths to which the evil GOP bastards are willing to go to to deny Americans access to affordable health care.
UPDATE: GOP repeal efforts would explode the deficit. Repealing ObamaCare would add $353 billion to deficits, CBO says. But as Dick Cheney famously said, “Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter,” to the GOP.
The pressure is now all on Republican governors like Doug Ducey to fix a Supreme Court ruling on the federal exchange. The 20 or so blue states will be fine, they accepted Medicaid expansion and either set up a state exchange or can easily pass a simple legislative fix to accept the federal exchange as their de facto state exchange. The blue states are already under 10% of non insured, and will probably hold between five and ten percent.
Red states have a much more dire prospect. Their subsidies for health insurance will go away, at the same time as they continue to pay taxes and penalties for Obamacare. The health insurance market in many of these red states will become problematic, and many hospitals will face financial stress.
Arizona is somewhat of a hybrid, we expanded Medicaid, but didn’t set up an exchange. The Medicaid expansion is still in state court, after the state Supreme Court ruled that Republican legislators have standing to challenge the expansion.
In any event, it will be interesting to see how Ducey and state Republicans reacts to losing state subsidies for hundreds of thousands of Arizonans.