As I expected, The US Supreme Court today ruled to allow nationwide subsidies on ObamaCare even though they are clearly illegal according to the law as written. The Court's long awaited decision in King v. Burwell was 6-3 for Burwell, ruling that the federal subsidies can still be paid to states that elected not to establish an exchange, a clear violation of the Tenth Amendment as well as the explicit wording of the law.
Voting with Justices Ginsberg, Sontamayor and Breyer were Justices Kennedy and Chief Justice John Roberts, whom wrote the majority opinion. While his opinion is a model of illogic and doublespeak, he at least had the honesty to admit that the Court's majority ignored the actual wording of the law itself as well as the Constitution:
“In this instance,” he wrote, “the context and structure of the act compel us to depart from what would otherwise be the most natural reading of the pertinent statutory phrase.”
This was challenging, he said, because there were “more than a few examples of inartful drafting that “does not reflect the type of care and deliberation that one might expect of such significant legislation.”
Or to translate this, the law itself is so poorly written, nonsensical and contradictory that the Supreme Court, in its wisdom had to actually rewrite it in order to continue to foist it on the American people.
Justice Roberts is frankly admitting that in this case, politics trumps not only what the law says but the Constitution. This is a classic case of what Lawyers refer to as a Stare Decisis 'because we said so' ruling. The actual wording of the law is what Roberts and his cohorts think it should be rather than what it actually is.
Justice Scalia had the right if it, as he frequently does. He read his dissent from the bench, a rare sign of profound disagreement.
In his dissent, Scalia said that we should start calling ObamaCare, “SCOTUSCare.” At the end of his dissent, Scalia wrote, “[t]he somersaults of statutory interpretation they have performed (“penalty” means tax, “further [Medicaid] payments to the State” means only incremental Medicaid payments to the State, “established by the State” means not established by the State) will be cited by litigants endlessly, to the confusion of honest jurisprudence. And the cases will publish forever the discouraging truth that the Supreme Court of the United States favors some laws over others, and is prepared to do whatever it takes to uphold and assist its favorites.”
Or as Senator Ted Cruz said, if these justices want to write law rather then interpret it, "They should run for Congress."
He's exactly right. This is the second time the Supreme Court has rewritten this law, not to mention the times this president has unilaterally (and illegally, I might add) done so.
The current ruling went right to the heart of what ObamaCare is all about - reducing benefits, increasing co-pays and raising premiums sky high on the middle class to subsidize all those new migrants the president is bringing in...with, of course, exemptions for the well connected. That includes every member of the Supreme Court, their employees and their families.
Those of the middle class whom can't pay will be fined by the IRS..and those who can't afford the co-pays after paying the high premiums to avoid the fine will simply go without care.
This is so far away from the Constitution our Founders bequeathed us or even the normal standards of jurisprudence as to be ludicrous. When judges write law on the fly to suit themselves and their political agenda, then there is no justice and no law.
There are several things to take away from this that are simply self-evident truths.
The Left now noisily celebrating this should understand that this creates a precedent that can be used against them in the future in ways they won't like. Blatant disregard for justice and the law eventually comes home to roost for those whom champion it.
Second, this ruling doesn't change the basic nature of ObamaCare. It merely preserves it as a poorly written law that makes no fiscal or common sense whatsoever. Half of the exchanges are already bankrupt or headed that way, because most of those who signed up are people who are taking advantage of full subsidies and pay no premiums anyway. There's a limit to how far the fiction will stretch until it cracks.
As Europe is now finding out, you can have an immigration society or a lavish welfare state, just not both.Many of the migrants this president is bringing in are going to turn out to be net tax consumers rather than tax payers by a huge margin. States like California are already seeing this at work. Far from helping to cure the deficit, ObamaCare is now estimated to increase the long-term federal deficit by $6.2 trillion, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report.
As President Obama continues his amnesty by executive order, expect this figure to increase markedly.
Congress, of course, could still use the power of the purse to defund ObamaCare. Under the present leadership, I rate the chances of that as roughly the shy side of zero.
Why this is true is unimportant right now, although as I've speculated on these pages the unprecedented amount of spying on American citizens, the enormous amount of data collected and President Obama's past use of such weapons and tactics against his political opponents might be an answer. Apparently I'm not the only one thinking that way.
None of this matters, really. We can be outraged, justifiably so, but as I pointed out yesterday, what really is important right now is answering Tolstoy's question: what then must we do?
I've said before that America's destiny is either to reaffirm the republic our forefathers bequeathed to us or to become Rome. The powers that be have apparently decided they're fine with Rome as long as their perks and bottom line are taken care of. Unless we're prepared to go along with that as a population of pauperized serfs supporting their rule and whatever they decree, we are going to have to band together to institute massive political change using what left of our republic and our rights as citizens..before we lose those as well.
Think this over:
What principles do you stand for, and what are you not willing to compromise on?
What are you prepared to do to change things?
Stay tuned.
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