Why the Supremes Need to Scrap Obamacare's Federal Exchange Subsidy 3/10/15 Reason.com

[*GG*]

Last week’s oral arguments for King vs. Burwell, the latest legal challenge to Obamacare before the Supreme Court, confirmed one thing: The law, as written, is a complete mess. The justices might be tempted to take it upon themselves to straighten it out to avoid disrupting coverage for millions of Americans, but that's really not their job. The Obama administration will no doubt disagree, but the most appropriate—and the least political—course for the justices would be to overrule the contested portion of the law and let Congress rewrite it.

At issue in the lawsuit is the legality of the billions of dollars in subsidies that the Internal Revenue Service is doling out through federal exchanges in about 35 states that refused to set up their own exchanges. The challengers claim that the law explicitly limits these subsidies to state, not federal, exchanges. As evidence, they point to Section 1311 of the Affordable Care Act, which states that subsidies should flow through exchanges "established by the State"—not "for the State" or "within the State" or myriad similar constructions. The logic behind this, they note, was to give states an incentive to establish their own exchanges, saving Uncle Sam the herculean task of doing so in 50 states. Also, the administration was eager to avoid the impression that it was engineering a federal takeover of the health care system, something that might well have scared away enough legislators to derail the law, given that it squeaked through narrowly on a strict party line.

The administration hotly disputes this. It notes that Section 1311 can't be interpreted in isolation from the broader purpose and structure of the law. Federal exchanges that are barred from handing out subsidies are doomed to fail, they point out, hardly something Congress could have intended. Why? Because they would attract only sick patients, especially since the cost of coverage on them is fairly high—thanks to Obamacare's mandates requiring insurance companies to offer guaranteed coverage, regardless of pre-existing conditions. Hence, young and healthy patients, despite being mandated to purchase coverage, could well decide to simply pay a penalty and sit it out, sending the exchange into an adverse selection death spiral as coverage prices rise, driving more healthy people out of the market.

cont'd

http://reason.com/archives/2015/03/10/why-the-supremes-need-to-scrap-obamacare/print

 

[SilverbladeTE]

Of course, America could instead scrap half its insane defence spending (frankly the F-35 is one of the worst cons/acts of treason/sabotage/robbery of the Public purse ever achieved, as one example)

hammer the rich bastards who've evaded tax so successfully thanks to bought and paid for politicians

and then use that money to afford a Universal health Care system

but hey, folk were conned into believing they were "free" and it's just market forces and too bad they can't afford health care! *face palm*

yeah Obamacare is a mess but no damn wonder, health insurance companies and their shills in Congress would rather 1/3rd of Americans suffer and die than lose a nickel.
Simple fact is in another 15+ years more than half Americans couldn't afford the insurance premiums anyway.

 

[perchance dreamer]

Oh, lord, does anyone seriously think this congress would rewrite and pass any needed changes to the healthcare law? The Republican party has never coalesced around a plausible alternative to Obamacare.

It certainly has faults, and, as Bill Maher pointed out, it's a big blowjob for the insurance companies. But many people now have access to healthcare who didn't before.

When I used to work freelance years ago, I developed an ovarian tumor, which turned out to be benign. After that, no insurance company would cover me until I was able to get covered on my now husband's company.

@SilverbladeTE, many of us here do want universal healthcare and think healthcare shouldn't be for profit, but I doubt it will happen in my lifetime. I hope I'm wrong.

 

[*GG*]

I want gov't out of health care as much as possible, they only increase costs and inefficiencies!

GG

PS The problem with Socialism, is that you run out of other people's money!!

 

[SilverbladeTE]

GGingues
Utterly wrong.
For God's sake stop listening to Rupert Murdoch/Koch media crap (99% of all US media is owned by 6 corporations, think they are going to tell you the truth?)

The NHS buys drugs at a fraction of the cost US patients are screwed over for, *fact*!
Massive, reliable bulk purchases reduce costs, basic fact of commerce.
Government backed criminal prosecution for over charging.
So, NHS patients often pay as little as 1/10th what US patients do for drugs.

Meanwhile I see US friends/family struggling to keep up with the insane profit motive of the US health insurance companies and other crap.
Sure USA has some of the world's finest hospitals but the vast majority of the population cannot afford those ones!
Can you not see how sick and insane it is that people have ot hope for being charity cases at such places?
there's nothing good or heroic about that, it's SICK.

Jeesh we do have problems with bureaucracy, always a given with ANY system, but least nearly every person on these isles gets treated.

Holy hell you have US judges taking bribes to falsely imprison children in *for profit* private prisons
You have inbred religious fanatic chimp brains banning the EPA from listening to *SCIENTISTS*
And your health insurance companies are guilty of MASS MURDER, but as usual get away with it, see UNUMProvident, and their "Hungry Vulture award" and how that also is part of why we ME patients are being screwed, you are supporting your own abusers!
(and I can provide proof of all that if you wish)

Socialism doesn't lose money, see you forget something like many who've been brainwashed by the crap
SOCIETY is what keeps the economy going, not the other way around.
Western Democratic Socialism is NOT bloody Stalinism etc.
See how well off the folk are in the Scandinavian countries and Denmark, versus US where folk are so screwed up, so scared of losing everything, in a nation so obsessed with greed and fear and war, that folk go psycho with it all and kill folk en masse, thinking "guns will save them" when they cannot as they are inanimate tools neither "demon monsters" (yes the Left can go stupid on such issues) or "super weapons" that make you Alvin Yorke or John Wayne,
where disabled war veterans are left to die, where such veterans are tossed out of their wheelchairs in public face first onto the concrete by vermin who dare to call themselves "police"

and I have family who are cops and the huge volume of video proven crime by US cops is a disgrace, don't tell me "big gub'ment is bad" when a national police training and standard system would save hundreds of US citizens from being shot by gung-ho jack ass morons!
The hypocrisy of supporting a shoddy, violent police state while decrying "big gub'ment" is ludicrous

You will probably not believe me, and I'm sorry about that, America WILL learn one day, as others have after horror and appalling crap make such stupidity no longer believed or acceptable
that's a long, painful, awful road to chose to take, sigh, but so be it.
Socialism is being a responsible adult instead of a greedy, self-obsessed teenager
And we do NOT have "Capitalism" in USA and now UK, it's Corporate Fascism, it is antithetical to Capitalism!

Merck *murdered* 55,000 Americans via falsehoods over selling a drug and got away with it, because Corporations have "hunting licences" and may kill as many of the folk you care for as long as they pay big campaign contributions, oh Citizens United, what a triumph of Democracy...NOT!
But go back and see how at first "Mercantilism" perverted and rode roughshod over Public health and safety with dumping industrial poisons willy-nilly, fights to stop such resulted in the EPA, and now the EPA is a "Liberal commie agenda to be broken up and stopped"
holy crap it's so ass backward stupid it would make you weep.

Like trying to wake a friend out of a drug addict nightmare

 

[*GG*]

GGingues
Utterly wrong.
For God's sake stop listening to Rupert Murdoch/Koch media crap (99% of all US media is owned by 6 corporations, think they are going to tell you the truth?)

The NHS buys drugs at a fraction of the cost US patients are screwed over for, *fact*!
Massive, reliable bulk purchases reduce costs, basic fact of commerce.
Government backed criminal prosecution for over charging.
So, NHS patients often pay as little as 1/10th what US patients do for drugs.

Meanwhile I see US friends/family struggling to keep up with the insane profit motive of the US health insurance companies and other crap.
Sure USA has some of the world's finest hospitals but the vast majority of the population cannot afford those ones!
Can you not see how sick and insane it is that people have ot hope for being charity cases at such places?
there's nothing good or heroic about that, it's SICK.

Jeesh we do have problems with bureaucracy, always a given with ANY system, but least nearly every person on these isles gets treated.

Holy hell you have US judges taking bribes to falsely imprison children in *for profit* private prisons
You have inbred religious fanatic chimp brains banning the EPA from listening to *SCIENTISTS*
And your health insurance companies are guilty of MASS MURDER, but as usual get away with it, see UNUMProvident, and their "Hungry Vulture award" and how that also is part of why we ME patients are being screwed, you are supporting your own abusers!
(and I can provide proof of all that if you wish)

Socialism doesn't lose money, see you forget something like many who've been brainwashed by the crap
SOCIETY is what keeps the economy going, not the other way around.
Western Democratic Socialism is NOT bloody Stalinism etc.
See how well off the folk are in the Scandinavian countries and Denmark, versus US where folk are so screwed up, so scared of losing everything, in a nation so obsessed with greed and fear and war, that folk go psycho with it all and kill folk en masse, thinking "guns will save them" when they cannot as they are inanimate tools neither "demon monsters" (yes the Left can go stupid on such issues) or "super weapons" that make you Alvin Yorke or John Wayne,
where disabled war veterans are left to die, where such veterans are tossed out of their wheelchairs in public face first onto the concrete by vermin who dare to call themselves "police"

and I have family who are cops and the huge volume of video proven crime by US cops is a disgrace, don't tell me "big gub'ment is bad" when a national police training and standard system would save hundreds of US citizens from being shot by gung-ho jack ass morons!
The hypocrisy of supporting a shoddy, violent police state while decrying "big gub'ment" is ludicrous

You will probably not believe me, and I'm sorry about that, America WILL learn one day, as others have after horror and appalling crap make such stupidity no longer believed or acceptable
that's a long, painful, awful road to chose to take, sigh, but so be it.
Socialism is being a responsible adult instead of a greedy, self-obsessed teenager
And we do NOT have "Capitalism" in USA and now UK, it's Corporate Fascism, it is antithetical to Capitalism!

Merck *murdered* 55,000 Americans via falsehoods over selling a drug and got away with it, because Corporations have "hunting licences" and may kill as many of the folk you care for as long as they pay big campaign contributions, oh Citizens United, what a triumph of Democracy...NOT!
But go back and see how at first "Mercantilism" perverted and rode roughshod over Public health and safety with dumping industrial poisons willy-nilly, fights to stop such resulted in the EPA, and now the EPA is a "Liberal commie agenda to be broken up and stopped"
holy crap it's so ass backward stupid it would make you weep.

Like trying to wake a friend out of a drug addict nightmare

Time to block you again, to much Socialist garbage for me!

Take Care

 

[SilverbladeTE]

Sigh, this is how you make slaves, convince them that that which would aid them is bad and thus create the system that keeps them impoverished, constantly at war, decreases education and increases social ills

Many of the ideas of the Foudners were superb, but there was also much they didn't know and couldn't plan on, like the degree of power "Robber Barons" and bankers eventually got and used to oust elected rule by corruption despite safeguards.
And time and corruption erode, entropy....

here PROOF Western Democratic Socialism benefits the *people*, and tus benefits business people who are not corrupt, stupid psychopaths, because health, housing, power, security, education and justice are the bedrock of society and are BEYOND price being made for the rich!

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/757132

Measurements and Main Results Estimated drug costs were determined by random sampling. Estimated annual costs/patient in the U.S. ranged from $313 for generic lovastatin to $1428 for nongeneric simvastatin. In the U.K., annual costs/patient ranged from $164 for generic simvastatin to $509 for nongeneric atorvastatin. The total annual cost of the continuous receipt of statins in the U.S. was $64.9 million compared with $15.7 million in the U.K. In June 2006, after our study results were analyzed, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved generic simvastatin. We thus derived cost estimates for simvastatin use during 2006 and found that more than 60% of simvastatin users switched to the generic product, which reduced the cost/pill by more than 50%.

Conclusion The cost paid for statins in the U.S. for people younger than 65 years, who were insured by private companies, was approximately 400% higher than comparable costs paid by the government in the U.K. Available generic statins were substantially less expensive than those that were still under patent in both countries.