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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: 5, Insightful) by seeprime on Thursday June 25 2015, @07:13PM
Our small family business pays very high taxes, about 40% leaving us with a greatly reduced net income. Some relief in any form is appreciated. We were paying $998 for my wife's and my health insurance with a $10,000 annual deductible limit. Now we pay $138 per month for the same coverage. I avoided Obamacare in 2014 as it was new and the risk of a bad application was about 10%. This year it's been a tremendous financial help. You will have your own opinion of Obamacare based on your income levels and political beliefs. I personally consider Obamacare one of the few good things that government has done for the middle class in past couple of decades. Thanks Obama.
(Score: 3, Informative) by aclarke on Thursday June 25 2015, @09:00PM
Thank you for this breath of fresh air. There's nothing like the concept of providing for the sick, poor, and needy to bring out the republicans/tea partiers/libertarians against anything like that. This is why Americans can't have nice things.
I lived in the US for quite a while, and I'm back in Canada now. I always heard horror stories of how bad Canadian taxes were compared to American taxes when I lived in the US. My sole proprietorship "small business" here in Canada paid 23.3% in taxes last year on gross income, and that's combined business/personal taxes. Yes, our HST at 13% is approximately twice the sales tax I paid in the US, but on the other hand I get all the HST paid on business expenses back which totals up to a few thousand dollars a year. Plus I don't even have to think about medical insurance. I just go to the doctor and get looked after. There are cases where the US system is better, mostly for non-acute surgical procedures and unusual tests and operations that can be hard to book here. But really, I'm having a hard time why so much of the American population is just so obstinately against the idea of socializing health care. "Social" is not a bad word.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday June 25 2015, @11:01PM
Some people just can't stand the idea of any of their tax money going to helping others.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2015, @05:18AM
(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Friday June 26 2015, @03:29PM
There's nothing like the concept of providing for the sick, poor, and needy to bring out the republicans/tea partiers/libertarians against anything like that.
Well, now we've got religious objections.
Seriously! 5 years ago it wasn't difficult to see a doctor. Now, if your gender doesn't match up with your paperwork, you get turned away, either explicitly or just sandbagged at the scheduling desk. Trans women I know now have to travel roughly 100 miles to the big city to an informed consent clinic because the local docs and endos won't see them.
Homosexuality and transgenderism is the new leprosy, and the pastors and preachers are thumping their Bibles and saying that if you're a medical provider and you treat the new lepers, man Jesus will send you to hell.
This kind of hypocrisy is what keeps me away from Western religions. (All though, Asatru is compelling. I was watching Vikings and wondered how an Amazon might fare against a Shield Maiden in battle.)
There is a reason that many trans folks, myself included, vote Libertarian. There's too much stupid in the world to trust governments. I do see the value in a single-payer system, and empirical analysis shows that single-payer is just good policy. Good luck finding a politician who's not a Green and is serious about implementing one. (Hell, if the Greens eat the
Democratleft-wing PR party's lunch, maybe I'd vote Green.) Until then, I don't need to fucking fund Viag— (mmmf! spam filter!) pills (among other pills, srsly “the” pill is not some huge financial burden).(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2015, @05:04PM
Do you have any examples of a pastor or a preacher publicly saying that treating these so-called "lepers" earns you a one-way ticket to hell? I've been in Christian churches all my life and I have never heard any such thing. I've heard that gays, lesbians, and transgenders are warped by sin at least a few times. But I have never heard any claim that treating them as patients earns you a trip to hell. I'm pretty sure that doctors, even Christian ones, are bound by some version of the Hippocratic Oath. This [usatoday.com] comes about as close as I can think to what you are talking about. But in that case, the doctor wasn't claiming that she feared for her soul, but that she would "not be able to develop the personal patient doctor relationship that I normally do with my patients". Still pretty heinous, to be sure, but not quite what you are claiming. So, do you have any examples to back up your claim?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2015, @08:09PM
Example [christianpost.com] for you.
Similarly, we have this [samuel-warde.com] example of "religious freedom" which is tangentially related to the GP's point.
Also, did the GP really call the Democrats left-wing? lol.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2015, @08:05PM
Those so-called "Libertarians" are the ones pushing for legislation that strips you of your rights and categorizes you as sub-human. How's that working out for you, voting against your own interests?