Obamacare ‘mastermind’ sends chills down spines with totalitarian ‘fix’ to failing health care law

[XenaLee]

Obamacare ‘mastermind’ sends chills down spines with totalitarian ‘fix’ to failing health care law
October 27, 2016 | Tom Tillison | Print Article   

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MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, widely seen as the architect of Obamacare, was asked Monday how to fix the collapsing health care mandate and like a true liberal, the professor prescribed more of the same bad medicine.

In response to reports that health care premiums will go up sharply next year, Gruber was asked by CNN host Carol Costello for one fix that could be applied to Obamacare that would drive premiums down.

“There’s no sense in which this has to be fix… the law’s working as designed,” he said. “However, it could work better and I think probably the most important thing experts would agree on is that we need a larger mandate penalty.”

Read more: http://www.bizpacreview.com/2016/10/27/obamacare-mastermind-sends-chills-spines-totalitarian-fix-failing-health-care-law-405102#ixzz4OICGUzlT

Well....sure.  It makes sense (to the average leftist).

Force taxpayers who can't afford it to keep either having to purchase skyrocketing healthcare....or force them into bankruptcy by upping the fine/penalty/tax/whatever for not being able to afford the product of "The Affordable Care Act".  And when all of those taxpayers are bankrupt, where will the nation's economy be?  Right where the leftist agenda intends it to be.  In the crapper a la Cloward-Piven style.

[Jazzhead]

Scolding those constantly on the losing side of today's activist courts as hypocrites when they complain is the icing on the cake.

But then I've seen my healthcare premiums nearly quadruple and have had three policies pulled out from under me in the past three years, and currently am without insurance and am looking at a penalty this year, so I'm really not the right audience for songs of praise for Obamacare.

My apologies if my post sounded like scolding.   I understand your frustration -  judicial activism is increasingly common and the left is particularly obnoxious in advocating for it.   But I still feel that Justice Roberts made the right call by not overturning the ACA.  I'm no cheerleader for the ACA,  but I do know the law far better than most of those who voted for the thing.  I see it's good and bad points,  and believe I know how it could be fixed consistent with conservative principles.   But it needs to be fixed (or repealed) by means of the legislative process, not by the edict of unelected judges.

[r9etb]

I don't see conservatives as having given up all other legislative recourse in favor of court rulings. Why would we? Courts haven't given us any reason for optimism - even less so than has congress.

With regard to the Big Decisions the court has made over the past several years, conservatives have indeed pinned their hopes on the court -- which explains much of the outrage directed, for example, toward Roberts for "betraying us" with his decision.

Concerning Obamacare, there was the matter of the penalty being a tax AND a fee, depending upon the argument being made at the time and to whom, or the very legitimate question of the Constitutionality of the fedgov forcing its subjects under threat of fine to buy any particular product. But beyond the impact the law has had on me personally I'm probably not qualified to make those arguments.

Roberts' ruling was pretty specific on that point: no matter what Congress called it -- fee or penalty or tax -- the authority to impose it nevertheless fell under Congress' authority to impose taxes.  In arguments before the court, the Gov't actually argued that it was a tax, which was also what the rest of us were calling it all along.

A better example of recent court activism is the same-sex marriage ruling: the legal reasoning for it was terrible, and clearly written in service to a pre-determined result.

[Jazzhead]

Nice, do you have a link?

No,  but I love to talk about the subject.  I'd love to get a dialogue going with those interested in fixing the ACA.   As for the book, the sixth edition is about to come out, so somebody must be willing to pay for it!     

[Sanguine]

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin if the pin shouldn't be there in the first place?

[skeeter]

With regard to the Big Decisions the court has made over the past several years, conservatives have indeed pinned their hopes on the court -- which explains much of the outrage directed, for example, toward Roberts for "betraying us" with his decision.

Roberts' ruling was pretty specific on that point: no matter what Congress called it -- fee or penalty or tax -- the authority to impose it nevertheless fell under Congress' authority to impose taxes.  In arguments before the court, the Gov't actually argued that it was a tax, which was also what the rest of us were calling it all along.

A better example of recent court activism is the same-sex marriage ruling: the legal reasoning for it was terrible, and clearly written in service to a pre-determined result.

I don't think you can find a better example of judicial activism when the court has to re-write the law they're ruling on in order to find it Constitutional.

http://aclj.org/obamacare/supreme-court-rewrites-obamacare-allows-huge-tax-increases

[r9etb]

I see it's good and bad points,  and believe I know how it could be fixed consistent with conservative principles.   But it needs to be fixed (or repealed) by means of the legislative process, not by the edict of unelected judges.

There's a fundamental question underlying that statement, to the effect of: as a society should we take steps to ensure necessary/basic medical care for those who cannot afford it?

I believe the answer to that is "yes."  To answer "no" violates Christian principles, among other things.

If that's agreed upon, the question moves on to ways and means: how do we achieve such a thing for people who cannot afford health care?

From a practical standpoint, the scale of the problem and the attendant monetary demands limit the possible responses to either large-scale private or religious charities, or some sort of government intervention.

We've seen the kind of damage and chaos a poorly-conceived government solution can cause; but in today's society it seems that a government solution is seen as the only viable solution: private charity is seen as probably not suited to a global solution (e.g., private charities may claim the right to pick and choose whom they'll serve).

Obamacare fails for precisely the same reason that any command economy fails.  As Hayek pointed out, a command economy cannot possibly gather and act on sufficient knowledge to make proper decisions.  Add to that the overtly political nature of the regulations, which don't just lack knowledge, but actually work against what we actually know.

Perhaps the least intrusive government intervention in the health-care world would be a means-tested subsidy so that people can buy existing health-care plans, which themselves are subject only to the most basic government requirements. 

[r9etb]

I don't think you can find a better example of judicial activism when the court has to re-write the law they're ruling on in order to find it Constitutional.

He didn't "re-write it."  Read the opinion -- his rationale for recognizing the "fee" as within Congress' authority to tax, is well-reasoned.

[skeeter]

He didn't "re-write it."  Read the opinion -- his rationale for recognizing the "fee" as within Congress' authority to tax, is well-reasoned.

They certainly did re-write it. Read the article I attached.

[r9etb]

They certainly did re-write it. Read the article I attached.

I read the opinion itself.... it doesn't say what this article says it says.  In fact, the article doesn't actually tell you what the opinion says.

[skeeter]

I read the opinion itself.... it doesn't say what this article says it says.  In fact, the article doesn't actually tell you what the opinion says.

The article I suggested says the same thing you did - that the court found Obamacare constitutional under congress' Taxing Powers.

HOW they got to the opinion is the entire point - the administration was arguing that the power to penalize came from the Commerce Clause. SOTUS threw that argument out and re-wrote the law to suggest constitutionality based upon the Taxing Powers of congress instead.

The article also points out that numerous lower courts had already thrown the Taxing Powers argument out. Making Roberts opinion doubly odd.

[r9etb]

The article also points out that numerous lower courts had already thrown the Taxing Powers argument out. Making Roberts opinion doubly odd.

This is hardly surprising, as the lower court rulings are how the case got to SCOTUS in the first place; and, moreover, "numerous courts" is not the same as "all courts;" in fact, I believe there were rulings both ways on that point -- in itself a guarantee that some of those lower-court rulings would be overturned by the SCOTUS decision.

HOW they got to the opinion is the entire point - the administration was arguing that the power to penalize came from the Commerce Clause. SOTUS threw that argument out and re-wrote the law to suggest constitutionality based upon the Taxing Powers of congress instead.

The law wasn't re-written at all.  The Roberts opinion simply stated that the fees, so-called, were within Congress' authority to levy taxes. 

[XenaLee]

He didn't "re-write it."  Read the opinion -- his rationale for recognizing the "fee" as within Congress' authority to tax, is well-reasoned.

How is it "well-reasoned" for government to be able to mandate and/or force some individuals ....let's say Group A ....to purchase a product....that the purchase of will effectively force them to subsidize that product for other people...let's say Group B?   And further, how is it well-reasoned for government to penalize Group A if/when they cannot afford to purchase said product?  Hell, Congress and their staff claimed they couldn't "afford" Obamacare....but they can mandate and force others making even less money to buy it?  It's bullsquat.  And it's the biggest scam and screw-job on American taxpayers by the radical left yet.  More screwin to come....count on it.

[r9etb]

How is it "well-reasoned" for government to be able to mandate and/or force some individuals ....let's say Group A ....to purchase a product....that the purchase of will effectively force them to subsidize that product for other people...let's say Group B?   And further, how is it well-reasoned for government to penalize Group A if/when they cannot afford to purchase said product?  Hell, Congress and their staff claimed they couldn't "afford" Obamacare....but they can mandate and force others making even less money to buy it?  It's bullsquat.  And it's the biggest scam and screw-job on American taxpayers by the radical left yet.  More screwin to come....count on it.

I was referring to his rationale for saying that the penalty (stupid and worse, in itself) falls within Congress' powers of taxation.  If you read the actual opinion, you'll see what I mean.

[skeeter]

This is hardly surprising, as the lower court rulings are how the case got to SCOTUS in the first place; and, moreover, "numerous courts" is not the same as "all courts;" in fact, I believe there were rulings both ways on that point -- in itself a guarantee that some of those lower-court rulings would be overturned by the SCOTUS decision.

The law wasn't re-written at all.  The Roberts opinion simply stated that the fees, so-called, were within Congress' authority to levy taxes.

We'll agree to disagree. I'll go with Scalia, Thomas and Alito over Ginsberg, Stevens, Sotomeyer AND Roberts any day of the week.

I'll leave you with some excerpt from the dissenting opinion:

1. "This Court, however, concludes that this limitation would prevent the rest of the Act from working as well as hoped. So it re-writes the law to make tax credits available everywhere. We should start calling this law SCOTUScare."

2. "The Court's next bit of interpretive jiggery-pokery involves other parts of the Act that purportedly presuppose the availability of tax credits on both federal and state Exchanges."

3. "Pure applesauce. Imagine that a university sends around a bulletin reminding every professor to take the "interests of graduate students" into account when setting office hours, but that some professors teach only undergraduates. Would anybody reason that the bulletin implicitly presupposes that every professor has "graduate students," so that "graduate students" must really mean "graduate or undergraduate students"? Surely not."

4. "The somersaults of statutory interpretation they have performed ... will be cited by litigants endlessly, to the confusion of honest jurisprudence."

5. "It is bad enough for a court to cross out "by the State" once. But seven times?"

6. "The Court's decision reflects the philosophy that judges should endure whatever interpretive distortions it takes in order to correct a supposed flaw in the statutory machinery. That philosophy ignores the American people's decision to give Congress "[a]ll legislative Powers" enumerated in the Constitution."

And from Scalia's oral dissent from the bench:

7. "The Court solves that problem (believe it or not) by simply saying that federal exchanges count as state exchanges only (and this is a quotation from the opinion) "for purposes of the tax credits." How wonderfully convenient and how utterly contrary to normal principles of interpretation."