Justice Scalia wrote in his dissenting opinion that the Supreme Court had made
a 'defense of the indefensible'.
June 25, 2015 In a landmark
6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the Affordable Care Act's
insurance subsidies in every state.
The decision in the King
v. Burwell case is a win for the White House. For Justice Antonin
Scalia, who wrote the dissenting opinion, the majority opinion, which was
authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, is a "defense of the
indefensible."
"We should start calling this law
SCOTUScare," he wrote. He continued: "Rather than
rewriting the law under the pretense of interpreting it, the Court should have
left it to Congress to decide what to do about the Act's limitation of tax
credits to state exchanges," Scalia wrote.
The ruling rejects a lawsuit that aimed
to gut federal health care subsidies for people in 34 states. If the Court had
ruled the other way, more than 6 million people would have been at risk of
losing their coverage.
Scalia, who read his dissent from the
bench, was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito in his dissent.
Scalia took issue with the majority's interpretation of the language within the
Affordable Care Act. The law states that in order for people to qualify for
health care subsidies, they need to be "enrolled in through an exchange
established by the state." The majority upheld that by "state,"
the law referred to individual state exchanges or exchanges set up by the
federal government. Otherwise, the majority opinion stated, state exchanges
would drown in a "death spiral."
Roberts wrote that "it
is implausible that Congress meant the Act to operate in this manner."
[Ed; Then kick the act back to Congress whose responsibility it was, and remains, to write into it exactly how they meant it to act in the first place.]
[Ed; Then kick the act back to Congress whose responsibility it was, and remains, to write into it exactly how they meant it to act in the first place.]
Scalia heavily criticized this reading,
saying that the majority has erroneously interpreted the word "state"
to also mean "federal government." He called parts of the majority
opinion "interpretive jiggery-pokery."
"The Secretary of Health and Human
Services is not a state," he wrote. "Words no longer have meaning if
an exchange that is not established by a state is 'established by the
state.'"
Scalia wrote that the justices who
authored the majority displayed "no semblance of shame" in their
opinion. His dissent is littered with jabs at his fellow justices.
"Today's interpretation is not merely unnatural; it is unheard of,"
Scalia writes. He describes another aspect of the majority's analysis to be
"pure applesauce."
King v. Burwell was one of
the biggest legal challenges to Obamacare since 2012, when the Court upheld
Obamacare's individual mandate. In the conclusion of his dissent, Scalia said
the Court got it wrong both times—and that it has shown bias toward the Obama
administration's policies.
"[T]he 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," Scalia wrote. "I dissent."
This story is
breaking and will be updated.
Thank You Ms Koren, Mr Resnick, and
National Journal.
No comments:
Post a Comment
All standard cautions apply. Your milage may vary.
So Try to be an Adult, [no carpet F bombings, Pron, open threats, etc.] and not a Psychiatrist, about it. Google account, for now, is no longer required to comment, but moderation is in effect.