Supreme Court upholds ObamaCare subsidies

BREAKING NEWS
Court upholds ObamaCare subsidies

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BREAKING NEWS: IN A MAJOR WIN for the Obama administration, the Supreme Court has upheld ObamaCare subsidies in states that did not set up their own health care exchanges.

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Supreme Court upholds ObamaCare subsidies

Published June 25, 2015 FoxNews.com

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NOW PLAYINGSupreme Court upholds ObamaCare subsidies

The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld ObamaCare subsidies nationwide, in the second major court victory for President Obama on his signature health care law.

In a 6-3 decision, the court ruled that subsidies are valid even in states that did not set up their own insurance exchanges.

A ruling against the administration would have threatened subsidies worth millions in nearly three-dozen states and imperiled the program itself. For months, though, the administration said it had no back-up plans, confident the Supreme Court would rule in its favor.

The Supreme Court previously upheld the law's individual mandate in 2012, in a 5-4 decision. This time, the justices said the subsidies that 8.7 million people currently receive to make insurance affordable do not depend on where they live, under the 2010 health care law.

Chief Justice John Roberts again voted with his liberal colleagues in support of the law. Roberts also was the key vote to uphold the law in 2012. Justice Anthony Kennedy, a dissenter in 2012, was part of the majority on Thursday.

"Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them," Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. "The Act gives each State the opportunity to establish its own Exchange, but provides that the Federal Government will establish the Exchange if the State does not."

Conservative-leaning justices, though, issued a scathing dissent to the decision, referencing the several times the high court has had to rule on the health law.

"We should just start calling this law SCOTUS care," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

The challenge devised by opponents of the law relied on four words -- established by the state -- in the more than 900-page law. The passage technically said subsidies were for those exchanges established by the state.

The law's opponents argued that the vast majority of people who now get help paying for their insurance premiums are, therefore, ineligible for their federal tax credits. That is because roughly three dozen states opted against creating their own health insurance marketplaces, or exchanges, and instead rely on the federal Healthcare.gov to help people find coverage if they don't get insurance through their jobs or the government.

In the challengers' view, the phrase "established by the state" demonstrated that subsidies were to be available only to people in states that set up their own exchanges. Those words cannot refer to exchanges established by the Health and Human Services Department, which oversees Healthcare.gov, the opponents argued.

Nationally, 10.2 million people have signed up for health insurance under the Obama health overhaul. That includes the 8.7 million people who are receiving an average subsidy of $272 a month to help pay their insurance premiums.

Of those receiving subsidies, 6.4 million people were at risk of losing that aid because they live in states that did not set up their own health insurance exchanges.

The case is King v. Burwell, 14-114.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015...are-subsidies/

http://www.alipac.us/f9/court-uphold...nation-320684/

I think this makes it clear that the courts especially the Supreme Court are not the answer to bad legislation. If Americans want an end to ObamaCare, it must be repealed through Congress. If people want cheaper insurance, they need to demand a repeal of the McCarran-Ferguson Act of 1945 so insurance companies a) are regulated by the federal government like other interstate companies in the United States b) can end the fraud of trying to be limited state insurance companies to avoid federal regulation c) will expand their operations across state lines increasing efficiency and competitiveness and d) put an end to clear and present Sherman Anti-Trust violations, their exclusion from which created by the McCarran-Ferguson Act makes them behave in an anti-competition cartel like fashion on the state level.

“In this world, with great power there must also come — great responsibility,”

6/24/15

http://www.alipac.us/f9/scotus-quote...ruling-320629/

http://www.alipac.us/f9/supreme-cour...states-320710/