Ray Jay wrote:

danivon wrote:Being a medical doctor may make you a medical expert.

But that is not the same as expertise in the economics of medicine. Indeed, it may just provide a false sense of expertise which masks a bias.

Yes; BTW, it's very similar to when climate scientists recommend programs that impact the economy.

Sure. Although I would listen to them on the science of climate, as I'd listen to a doctor on my health.

Just another iteration of "President Obama is a major league liar."

The Journal’s Stephanie Armour reports:

Jonathan Gruber, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist whose comments about the health-care law touched off a political furor, worked more closely than previously known with the White House and top federal officials to shape the law, previously unreleased emails show.

The emails, provided by the House Oversight Committee to The Wall Street Journal, cover messages Mr. Gruber sent from January 2009 through March 2010. Committee staffers said they worked with MIT to obtain the 20,000 pages of emails….

The emails show frequent consultations between Mr. Gruber and top Obama administration staffers and advisers in the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services on the Affordable Care Act. They show he informed HHS about interviews with reporters and discussions with lawmakers, and he consulted with HHS about how to publicly describe his role….

The White House has described Mr. Gruber as having a limited role in crafting the law. President Barack Obama in 2014 said Mr. Gruber was “some adviser who never worked on our staff.” Mr. Gruber told Congress last year he disagreed with the widespread characterization of his role as the “architect” of Mr. Obama’s health-care plan.

Gruber famously said that the American people were stupid and that's why they were able to force-feed us Obamacare. He tried to back off of that, but similar statements of his proved it was exactly what he believed. Then the President and others tried to pretend he was a bit-player. These emails show otherwise:

This in particular supplies a certain context to the White House’s disavowals of Gruber:

“Thank you for being an integral part of getting us to this historic moment,” according to Sept. 9, 2009 email to Mr. Gruber from Jeanne Lambrew, a top Obama administration health adviser who worked at HHS and the White House. In a November 2009 email, she called Mr. Gruber “our hero.”

So, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson now serves on the USSC.

Good news, politically, for both the President and the GOP. Bad news for people as the ACA will continue to hurt our healthcare system.

Fate

Good news, politically, for both the President and the GOP

.
For Obama I understand?

Explain why you think its good for the GOP.
They can continue to oppose something without offering a substantive alternative?

rickyp wrote:Fate

Good news, politically, for both the President and the GOP

.
For Obama I understand?

Explain why you think its good for the GOP.
They can continue to oppose something without offering a substantive alternative?

No, it's better than that. If the Court struck down the subsidies, Obama would put the pressure on them to change the wording. Furthermore, the press would blame their inaction (or different action) for the people losing their coverage rather than on the idiots who wrote the bill. This way, Democrats own the ACA lock, stock, and barrel.

You may think that's good news for Democrats. Funny but, if you will recall, Democrats had overwhelming majorities in Congress when they passed this law. Now? Not so much.

Robert 's opinion is well-reasoned; Scalia's dissent is unprofessional, unconvincing, disrespectful, partisan and harmful to the court. Outrageous. Congress never intended to not grant tax credits for those on the federal exchange. The whole case was contrived nonsense.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14 ... 4_qol1.pdf

freeman3 wrote:Robert 's opinion is well-reasoned; Scalia's dissent is unprofessional, unconvincing, disrespectful, partisan and harmful to the court. Outrageous. Congress never intended to not grant tax credits for those on the federal exchange. The whole case was contrived nonsense.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14 ... 4_qol1.pdf

Reading through it, it does seem bizarre as cases go. Not wanting tax credits to apply so the cost goes above the 8% limit?

freeman3 wrote:Robert 's opinion is well-reasoned; Scalia's dissent is unprofessional, unconvincing, disrespectful, partisan and harmful to the court. Outrageous. Congress never intended to not grant tax credits for those on the federal exchange. The whole case was contrived nonsense.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14 ... 4_qol1.pdf

I'm no lawyer, but isn't it just a literal reading of the actual statute that Congress passed?

Let us not forget that the term “Exchange established by the State” appears twice in §36B and five more times in other parts of the Act that mention tax credits. What are the odds, do you think, that the same slip of the pen occurred in seven separate places? No provision of the Act—none at all—contradicts the limitation of tax credits to state Exchanges. And as I have already explained, the term “Exchange established by the State” beyond the context of tax credits look anything but accidental. Supra,at 6. If there was a mistake here, context suggests it was a substantive mistake in designing this part of the law, not a technical mistake in transcribing it.

Ray Jay wrote:

freeman3 wrote:Robert 's opinion is well-reasoned; Scalia's dissent is unprofessional, unconvincing, disrespectful, partisan and harmful to the court. Outrageous. Congress never intended to not grant tax credits for those on the federal exchange. The whole case was contrived nonsense.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14 ... 4_qol1.pdf

I'm no lawyer, but isn't it just a literal reading of the actual statute that Congress passed?

Let us not forget that the term “Exchange established by the State” appears twice in §36B and five more times in other parts of the Act that mention tax credits. What are the odds, do you think, that the same slip of the pen occurred in seven separate places? No provision of the Act—none at all—contradicts the limitation of tax credits to state Exchanges. And as I have already explained, the term “Exchange established by the State” beyond the context of tax credits look anything but accidental. Supra,at 6. If there was a mistake here, context suggests it was a substantive mistake in designing this part of the law, not a technical mistake in transcribing it.

Both rulings do that, and both infer the intent differently. One in a way that retains the overall intent of the Act, and the other that assumes different intent.

He is also ignoring with his wondering about repeated slips of the pen that we use computers with cut&paste now so propagating errors is a lot easier than it used to be.

The case and his dissent are not about the law, but about pedantry.

danivon wrote:

Ray Jay wrote:

freeman3 wrote:Robert 's opinion is well-reasoned; Scalia's dissent is unprofessional, unconvincing, disrespectful, partisan and harmful to the court. Outrageous. Congress never intended to not grant tax credits for those on the federal exchange. The whole case was contrived nonsense.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14 ... 4_qol1.pdf

I'm no lawyer, but isn't it just a literal reading of the actual statute that Congress passed?

Let us not forget that the term “Exchange established by the State” appears twice in §36B and five more times in other parts of the Act that mention tax credits. What are the odds, do you think, that the same slip of the pen occurred in seven separate places? No provision of the Act—none at all—contradicts the limitation of tax credits to state Exchanges. And as I have already explained, the term “Exchange established by the State” beyond the context of tax credits look anything but accidental. Supra,at 6. If there was a mistake here, context suggests it was a substantive mistake in designing this part of the law, not a technical mistake in transcribing it.

Both rulings do that, and both infer the intent differently. One in a way that retains the overall intent of the Act, and the other that assumes different intent.

No, this is what Roberts argued he was doing.

Others look at what he did and say, with a great deal of merit, that he decided what the intent was and wrote his opinion based on his opinion of what the intent was.

Seven times is no "slip of the pen."

We know from Dr. Gruber what the intent was. However, Roberts was not able to consider that. Still, what Roberts did was legislate--precisely what he whines about in today's USSC decision on homosexual marriage.

The question from both of these cases is this: is there anything the Supreme Court cannot do? Are there any limits? If so, they are not readily apparent.

I want to respond to RJ's post that the decision ignored clear language that tax credits only apply to exchanges created by a state.
Here are the main relevant provisions :

26 USC 36(b)--tax credits only apply to an exchange created by a state under 42 USC 18031.
42 USC 18031--discusses creation of exchanges by states.
42 USC 18031--Secretary of Health and Human Services, if a state does not create an exchange or it's exchange does not meet requirements, will operate such exchange within the state.

Roberts focused on the language "such exchange" to find that there was ambiguity in whether Section 36(B) applies to state exchanges or to both state and federal exchanges. As you can see, the language in 18041 clearly implies that the federal government will physically go into the state and run their exchange. When the statute says "such exchange " it is clearly referring to the exchange which it has been just talking about--an exchange created by the state. The original ACA seemed to think of the federal government as just stepping into the shoes of states who were unable to set up their exchanges.

Once Roberts found that ambiguity in the way section 18041 operates he finds that under section 18041 the federal government is told to operate the same exchange as was created under section 18031 by a state. There is no difference between the two. Roberts finds that if the federal exchange was found to be created under section 18041 and not 18031 then according to a provision of section 18031 there would be no qualified individuals eligible to obtain health plans which would make no sense. There are also provisions with regard to tax credits that assume they will pertain to both state and federal exchanges.

Once he found the statute was ambiguous then Roberts analyzed the statute to find that it would make no rational sense to only give tax credits on state exchanges and not the federal exchange. Without the tax credits must people ( 87 percent) would not be required to purchase health insurance and the program would fall apart. That could not have been the intent of Congress

Robert did not rewrite the statute. Section 18041 did not clearly delineate a difference between a state exchange and and a federal exchange--in fact, the language and geographical reference indicate that the federal government was simply to operate the state exchange. Of course, the federal government would also--if the state did not make any effort at creating an exchange--be establishing the exchange and not the state. This created an ambiguity in the statute. Such an ambiguity had to be resolved by the courts.

freeman3 wrote:I want to respond to RJ's post that the decision ignored clear language that tax credits only apply to exchanges created by a state.
Here are the main relevant provisions :

26 USC 36(b)--tax credits only apply to an exchange created by a state under 42 USC 18031.
42 USC 18031--discusses creation of exchanges by states.
42 USC 18031--Secretary of Health and Human Services, if a state does not create an exchange or it's exchange does not meet requirements, will operate such exchange within the state.

Roberts focused on the language "such exchange" to find that there was ambiguity in whether Section 36(B) applies to state exchanges or to both state and federal exchanges. As you can see, the language in 18041 clearly implies that the federal government will physically go into the state and run their exchange. When the statute says "such exchange " it is clearly referring to the exchange which it has been just talking about--an exchange created by the state. The original ACA seemed to think of the federal government as just stepping into the shoes of states who were unable to set up their exchanges.

Once Roberts found that ambiguity in the way section 18041 operates he finds that under section 18041 the federal government is told to operate the same exchange as was created under section 18031 by a state. There is no difference between the two. Roberts finds that if the federal exchange was found to be created under section 18041 and not 18031 then according to a provision of section 18031 there would be no qualified individuals eligible to obtain health plans which would make no sense. There are also provisions with regard to tax credits that assume they will pertain to both state and federal exchanges.

Once he found the statute was ambiguous then Roberts analyzed the statute to find that it would make no rational sense to only give tax credits on state exchanges and not the federal exchange. Without the tax credits must people ( 87 percent) would not be required to purchase health insurance and the program would fall apart. That could not have been the intent of Congress

Robert did not rewrite the statute. Section 18041 did not clearly delineate a difference between a state exchange and and a federal exchange--in fact, the language and geographical reference indicate that the federal government was simply to operate the state exchange. Of course, the federal government would also--if the state did not make any effort at creating an exchange--be establishing the exchange and not the state. This created an ambiguity in the statute. Such an ambiguity had to be resolved by the courts.

Thanks; I've since read of interviews of those who drafted the statutes indicating they used the term "state exchanges" to exclude private exchanges before the notion of a federal exchange came into being, but that in the rush to pass the ACA, they forgot to broaden the statute to include federal exchange in these provisions.

So, sloppy drafting, but I can see why the SC ruled as it did.

That makes sense; I hadn't seen that. It's important for the public to know that the Supreme Court is not just acting arbitrarily and re-writing law. It's dismaying to see Scalia attack the integrity of the court. Respect for the court's decisions is an important part of our system of government. I don 't have a problem with his dissenting but I think he was out of line in attacking the integrity of the court.

One of the ridiculous aspects of the legal challenge to the ACA is that the plaintiffs claimed that the intent of the law, that is the intent of those who wrote the law, was what the plaintiffs said it was...

In challenges regarding the Constitution the intent of the framers is often argued. And often there's doubt. In the case of the ACA however, the people who wrote the law are alive and well, and loudly explaining what they actually meant to anyone who would listen.

They filed an amicus brief in fact. In order to argue the opposite the plaintiffs had to ignore living breathing people and explain that despite their protestations ...we know what they really meant.

How much time and money was wasted by this extraordinarily bizarre side show?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/won ... lly-meant/

rickyp wrote:One of the ridiculous aspects of the legal challenge to the ACA is that the plaintiffs claimed that the intent of the law, that is the intent of those who wrote the law, was what the plaintiffs said it was...

In challenges regarding the Constitution the intent of the framers is often argued. And often there's doubt. In the case of the ACA however, the people who wrote the law are alive and well, and loudly explaining what they actually meant to anyone who would listen.

They filed an amicus brief in fact. In order to argue the opposite the plaintiffs had to ignore living breathing people and explain that despite their protestations ...we know what they really meant.

How much time and money was wasted by this extraordinarily bizarre side show?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/won ... lly-meant/

Yes, intent is often argued, but that's usually when the written word is ambiguous. But in this case the written word is explicit, so you are asking SCOTUS to rule intent is more important than the written word, and written several times at that. So, I can understand where the dissent is coming from too. I don't see it as an "extraordinary bizarre side show", but rather reasonable people seeing these things differently, and non-reasonable, narrow-minded people name calling the other side.