Roberts vs Obama: Affordable Health Care Act goes to SCOTUS

some guy called into npr here recently and was explaining that he worked really hard and didn't make a lot of money and didn't see any benefit he got out of government programs. the host asked, incredulously, "surely you'll benefit from social security when you retire?" he responded, "i work so hard i don't have time to think about the future."

Roll up your jeans, guys, and step into the comments pool.

The future doesn't think much of you, either, buddy

btw I misread the website as nationalgeographic.com for some reason and was pretty sad for a minute there.

the US already has a relatively decent subsidized healthcare program for the elderly called Medicare -- it starts at 65. I'm not sure I understand why the premiums for young people -- who for the most part earn the least -- should increase so drastically while the premiums of people ages 61-64 should increase almost not at all. If it were true, it would be both inequitable and economically foolish. But because this is the National Review I imagine there's something being left out of the analysis.

Premiums for young people on average will increase because a bunch of people are running around without health insurance right now and they'll be paying more than $0

premiums have been careening upward well before HCR; the insurance industry is good at making money. I'm skeptical that the ACA impairs their profits in such a way that they have to jack up premiums any more than they would otherwise.

insurance industry is doing a-ok under ACA, you bet

Premiums for young people on average will increase because a bunch of people are running around without health insurance right now and they'll be paying more than $0

― mh, Tuesday, January 15, 2013 6:46 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is definitely true, but it's not the scenario the article purports to address.

premiums have been careening upward well before HCR; the insurance industry is good at making money. I'm skeptical that the ACA impairs their profits in such a way that they have to jack up premiums any more than they would otherwise.

― Matt Armstrong, Tuesday, January 15, 2013 6:48 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is also definitely true. My premium went up about 9% this year. It will be interesting to see whether the increase is any greater with ACA in effect.

tbf the industry has been jacking up rates in anticipation of the future

Yeah the insurance industry would be jacking up rates regardless. This is just a good excuse.

http://healthland.time.com/2013/02/20/bitter-pill-why-medical-bills-are-killing-us/print/

long, super interesting article

Ugh, I went to the ER on Monday, not excited to see how my insurance does or does not cover it.

here we go again!

p nervous tbh

so is Donald Verelli.

Can't believe how they are going to brush over the standing issue:

When the Solicitor General took the lectern, he elected to begin by talking about standing, which had been raised by Justice Ginsburg. The short version of his point is that as long as one of the plaintiffs had to pay a tax penalty in 2014, one of the plaintiffs would have standing. The SG explained that the government simply does not know whether that is true because there has been no fact-finding in the case. He further stated that as long as the other side does not represent that their clients lack standing, he would assume that they do in fact have it, and proceed to the merits. There was a little bit of skeptical questioning about this: the Chief Justice and Justice Alito both suggested that standing should not be adjudicated at this stage. And the SG did not fight them on that. Interestingly, Justice Sotomayor also jumped in to say that the Court could accept Carvin’s representation that there is standing, thus suggesting her desire to reach the merits.

http://www.scotusblog.com/2015/03/continued-updates-on-oral-arguments-in-king-v-burwell/#more-225683

a complete cave in on standing. damn.

the only possible explanation is Ginsberg thinks she has the votes today and she knows that she'll have to retire soon.

oh great:

Trained constitutional lawyers will find it noteworthy that his focus here is on the consequence for states as such, and not for their citizens; Kennedy’s concern is about the federal/state balance and his distrust of a reading that puts a gun to the head of states that fail to set up their own exchanges – threatening them with the almost certain destruction of their statewide insurance systems if they do not comply. That concern might be interpreted (as a matter of legal theory) in a few different ways: Justice Kennedy might believe that Congress would not have intended to set up such a dubious system; he might believe that this reading is required but actually unconstitutional (so that he would strike down the statute’s condition that subsidies apply only to exchanges established by the state); or – perhaps most likely – he might believe that the statute should be interpreted so as to avoid the “serious constitutional problem” he identified.

For those less immersed in the legal niceties, however, I think the key takeaway is that – in a case that seemingly pits literalism against contextualism – Justice Kennedy was very attentive to the consequences of the reading that petitioners urged. He seemed to realize that state legislators would be in an impossible position under that reading – more or less forced to “adopt” or “endorse” the ACA system in order to avoid unmanageable consequences in their states. His plausible conclusion was that Congress either did not intend to put them to that choice, or that the statute shouldn’t be read to have done so, because that’s not typically how our constitutional system works. Instead, the federal government makes and administers federal laws without forcing the states to do some of the work for them. Kennedy seemed to be thinking that this provision should be read more like the typical case, and rather unlike the kind of unusual provision the petitioners suggested.

http://www.scotusblog.com/2015/03/king-v-burwell-updates-kennedy-concerned-about-consequences/

The transcript. For lunchtime laffs, turn to page nine and read how Elena Kagan flummoxes the plaintiff's lawyer Michael Carvin with a question about Elizabeth, Will, and Amanda, three imaginary tasks assigned writing and editing duties.

*three imaginary clerks

is the weakest of the early Cure records

Can't believe how they are going to brush over the standing issue:

When the Solicitor General took the lectern, he elected to begin by talking about standing, which had been raised by Justice Ginsburg. The short version of his point is that as long as one of the plaintiffs had to pay a tax penalty in 2014, one of the plaintiffs would have standing. The SG explained that the government simply does not know whether that is true because there has been no fact-finding in the case. He further stated that as long as the other side does not represent that their clients lack standing, he would assume that they do in fact have it, and proceed to the merits. There was a little bit of skeptical questioning about this: the Chief Justice and Justice Alito both suggested that standing should not be adjudicated at this stage. And the SG did not fight them on that. Interestingly, Justice Sotomayor also jumped in to say that the Court could accept Carvin’s representation that there is standing, thus suggesting her desire to reach the merits.

http://www.scotusblog.com/2015/03/continued-updates-on-oral-arguments-in-king-v-burwell/#more-225683

― curmudgeon, Wednesday, March 4, 2015 11:21 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm fine with them having standing to sue. kind of a bad look for liberals to want this case to be thrown out on standing but get all mad when courts throw out surveillance cases on standing.

really loved the highlight reel, on NPR this morning, of Republicans assuming the state's arg (that the subsidy extends regardless of the state's decision to establish a marketplace). really put things in perspective re how shitty this whole mess is

x-post--seems like the Justice Dept blew it by not looking into standing earlier. Mother Jones writer thought of it, but they never did. Weird.