eNews Commentary • Jul 2014 • Health Care Reform - Obamacare • Health Exchanges -Obamacare

SCORE: Freedom 1. Obama 1.

 

July 23, 2014
 
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Will the Rule of Law stand? Yesterday’s split court rulings on the legality of IRS-issued Obamacare subsidies through the federal exchange shows the battle at hand.

Obamacare supporters are already plying propaganda tactics to try to shape the final outcome. For example, check out the methods insurance expert Robert Laszewski uses in his blog:

  1. IGNORE TRUTH: Laszewski never admits that legislation is painstakingly written to avoid interpretation. Instead he says about the restriction of subsidies to state exchanges, “At worst, this is clearly a drafting error…” Not true. Obamacare has ZERO funding for a federal exchange. Obama’s plan was 50 state exchanges. The bait was taxpayer subsidies.
  1. OMIT FACTS: He writes, “I don’t recall a single member of Congress, Republican or Democrat, who believed that if [states didn’t build an exchange] those states would lose their subsidies.” But few if any Members, including former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, read the bill.
  1. FLIP-FLOP CHALLENGE: Daring Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to go against his previous ‘pretzelized’ support for Obamacare, he writes: “It is hard to see how a Roberts’ Supreme Court would finally deal Obamacare so serious a blow given that the Court upheld one of the core elements of the law.”
  1. GENERATE FEAR: Rather than admit Obama’s IRS is illegally issuing subsidies, and desperate to soften the resolve of Republicans, Lazsewski writes: “The political consequences for all of these people losing their subsidies and their coverage would immediately shift to the Republicans who control these state governments.”
  1. FALSE CLAIMS: He concludes, “[B]elow the surface lots of sensible Republicans must be sweating bullets.” No, those sweat droplets are coming from the White House, the DNC, and the hands typing his blog post.
 
Here is what happened yesterday. The D.C. Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 in Halbig vs. Burwell that a plain reading of the law means the federal exchange (Healthcare.gov) cannot issue federal premium subsidies. This means no subsidies in the 36 states without a state exchange, and no penalties because the individual and employer mandates hinge on the availability of subsidies.
 
In King vs. Burwell, the Virginia Court of Appeals ruled 3-0 that the subsidies can be issued by the federal exchange, because the language is "ambiguous and subject to multiple interpretations." Although Obama will appeal for an en banc hearing by the D.C. Court of Appeals (all nine judges including the three he appointed last year), expect both cases to end up in the U.S. Supreme Court in 2015.
 
Don’t miss the Halbig ruling on “legislative supremacy”:
 
"Within constitutional limits, Congress is supreme in matters of policy, and the consequence of that supremacy is that our duty when interpreting a statute is to ascertain the meaning of the words of the statute duly enacted through the formal legislative process. This limited role serves democratic interests by ensuring that policy is made by elected, politically accountable representatives, not by appointed, life-tenured judges."

In short, the American Rule of Law is at stake. If the written words of a statute mean nothing and interpretation means everything, America has no law. Whoever “interprets” the statute can make up the law as they go.
 
Obama has been caught in his failed commandeering scheme. No federal exchange was planned and states can’t be forced to build and fund state exchanges. But will appointed judges rule to support the Rule of Law under the U.S. Constitution -- or Obama’s “Whatever I Say It Says It Says” Rule?  Take Action:  tell your governor and state legislators (and candidates) to refuse to build or fund a state exchange.
 
In freedom,
 
Twila Brase
President and Co-founder