SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Reuters reports that the US Supreme Court has ruled 6 - 3 in favor of the nationwide availability of tax subsidies that are crucial to the implementation of President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law, handing a major victory to the President. It marked the second time in three years that the high court ruled against a major challenge to the law brought by conservatives seeking to gut it. "Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them," wrote Chief Justice Roberts, who added that nationwide availability of the credits is required to "avoid the type of calamitous result that Congress plainly meant to avoid." The ruling will come as a major relief to Obama as he seeks to ensure that his legacy legislative achievement is implemented effectively and survives political and legal attacks before he leaves office in January 2017.
Justice Antonin Scalia took the relatively rare step of reading a summary of his dissenting opinion from the bench. "We really should start calling the law SCOTUScare," said Scalia, referencing the court's earlier decision upholding the constitutionality of the law (SCOTUS is the acronym for the Supreme Court of the United States).
Original Submission
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2015, @06:32PM
No legal expertise required, only fluency in the English language and rudimentary reading comprehension skills suffice. The SCOTUS itself, in their majority opinion, concedes the point that the plain language of the law compelled the opposite decision, they simply ruled the other way anyway.
Apparently you lack that fluency too since that is categorically not what the SCOTUS said in their majority opinion. Right there on page 3 they explicitly say that the language is not plain: "When read in context, the phrase “an Exchange established by the State under [42 U. S. C. §18031]” is properly viewed as ambiguous. The phrase may be limited in its reach to State Exchanges. But it could also refer to all Exchanges—both State and Federal—for purposes of the tax credits."
Only a total fruitloop would read the word "ambiguous" as meaning "plain language."
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday June 25 2015, @07:20PM
Nice cherry pick. But NO, that is not what it said. It was referring to the State Government, NOT the Federal Government.
Maybe instead of making wild assertions, you might actually read what 42 U. S. C. §18031 actually SAYS.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/18031 [cornell.edu]
There is no way you can substitute the Federal Government for a State Government in that section and stay within the law.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2015, @07:24PM
> Maybe instead of making wild assertions, you might actually read what 42 U. S. C. §18031 actually SAYS.
You are accusing the scotus of making wild assertions? I guess that puts you in the fruitloop category too.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday June 25 2015, @07:38PM
> Maybe instead of making wild assertions, you might actually read what 42 U. S. C. §18031 actually SAYS.
You are accusing the scotus of making wild assertions? I guess that puts you in the fruitloop category too.
Now, now, let's just cut to the chase. The legislature passed an bill that is inconsistent on this minor point, if it were to be read literally. This means one of two things. If Congress meant the law to be taken literally, it means they intended to destroy the ACA. But Congress has had some fifty votes to repeal the act, and all of them have failed, so clearly that cannot be the legislative intent. On the other hand, the legislature meant to say the "state", rather than "State", and the intent was that ACA would be workable. Since one of these interpretations is clearly false, the other must be the case, and the Court has so found. Letter of the law is a typo, it is the spirit of the law that matters. Why do I suspect that we have some disingenious Constitutional Literalists here on SoylentNews? SoylentNews is not literal language, SoylentNews is people!
And Justice Roberts quotes the Conservative minority from the earlier case? https://twitter.com/irin/status/614078327939272705/photo/1 [twitter.com] Ouch!
(Score: 2, Redundant) by curunir_wolf on Thursday June 25 2015, @08:26PM
I am a crackpot
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2015, @08:42PM
> Maybe they should not have gone along with passing it before they knew what was in it.
50 attempts to repeal it without a single success seems like pretty clear proof that congress is happy enough with what they did pass.
(Score: 1) by Groonch on Thursday June 25 2015, @09:19PM
The point at issue was not some obscure feature of the ACA but the basic architecture of it.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday June 25 2015, @09:33PM
OH, really? Why do you say this? I thought the question of the basic structure was settled in the previous SCOTUS case.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Groonch on Friday June 26 2015, @01:56AM
The fact that the federal government can set up exchanges if the state governments do not is pretty basic to the scheme of the ACA. If you had to explain the ACA on a napkin, this would be on that napkin. Amusingly, Roberts' opinion in this case actually points out that some of the justices in the minority actually acknowledged this as self-evident fact in the 2012 decision. When it became a possible way to gut Obamacare, Scalia, Alito and Thomas suddenly felt very differently about it...
(Score: 1) by Groonch on Friday June 26 2015, @02:13AM
And no, the 2012 case was not about determining the basic structure of the ACA; It was about whether the ACA is constitutional. I don't recall any significant statutory interpretation issues in it.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 25 2015, @11:24PM
Apparently you lack that fluency too since that is categorically not what the SCOTUS said in their majority opinion. Right there on page 3 they explicitly say that the language is not plain: "When read in context, the phrase “an Exchange established by the State under [42 U. S. C. §18031]” is properly viewed as ambiguous. The phrase may be limited in its reach to State Exchanges. But it could also refer to all Exchanges—both State and Federal—for purposes of the tax credits."
Only for certain values of "proper". They admit here that there thing is clearly defined, but then assert to the contrary that it is "properly" viewed as "ambiguous".
What's going to happen when this sort of reasoning is used on secret trade agreements or extending the US's government's powers? The ends don't justify these means because the means are too broad and can be readily applied to far more wicked ends.
And once again, the Supreme Court unconstitutionally ignores the lack of severability built into the law. The law should have been throw out twice now due to the issues found in it. They do not have the legal authority to pick and choose what to keep because the US Congress didn't allow for that.
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Friday June 26 2015, @12:42AM
And once again, the Supreme Court unconstitutionally ignores . . .
I am so glad that finally there is somewhere to appeal really bad Supreme Court decisions! It is almost like having an EU court! Or a TPP court! We can call it, "The Ubersupreme Court of jmorris and khallow." Unfortunately, I predict almost entirely split decisions, once the honeymoon is over.