Category Archives: supreme court
Gay Marriage Bigotry
Everybody knows President Obama was against same sex marriage until he was for it. He said he evolved on the issue. Justice Kennedy and four other members of the Supreme Court also evolved this week. Now that it’s a civil right, opposition to gay marriage could be considered bigotry.
Gay Marriage Baked in the Cake
The Supreme Court is considering whether same sex marriage is a constitutional right. Many court experts think it’s already baked in the cake. American tolerance of homosexuality has improved dramatically in a short time. Does the tolerance go both ways?
LGBT activists recently shunned and boycotted a prominent gay couple for hosting Ted Cruz for a discussion about gay marriage and the Middle East. A Christian couple in Oregon lost their bakery when they refused to bake a cake for a same sex wedding. Then a judge fined them $135000. They were kicked off GoFundMe where they were raising funds to pay the fine.
During oral arguments last week Alito asked if churches could lose their tax exempt status if they refuse to perform gay weddings. The government lawyer said it would be “an issue”.
Stupid Voters
The administration whose foreign policy is “don’t do stupid shit” thinks we’re stupid.
Here’s why.
The United States Supreme Court has agreed to decide King v Burwell. The case is about the survival of ObamaCare. The plaintiff says the Affordable Care Act only permits subsidies on state run health care exchanges. The IRS allows subsidies on federal exchanges as well. Without subsidies ObamaCare is no more.
The reason the law was written that way was to create an incentive for states to set up exchanges say law professors Jonathan Adler and Jonathan Turley. Apparently it wasn’t incentive enough because only 16 states set up exchanges.
The administration argument (not surprisingly) is that the law doesn’t mean what it says. The intention of those who wrote it was to offer subsidies on all exchanges. And good intentions are everything.
Enter one more Jonathan, MIT egghead Jonathan Gruber. He’s the architect of the law and he says the plain wording is just a type-o. His intent was indeed for federal exchanges to offer subsidies.
Unfortunately for Gruber a video emerged in which he claimed that if a state doesn’t set up an exchange not only will its citizens not receive subsidies, they, as taxpayers, will have to pay for other people’s subsidies on other state exchanges.
Gruber, wearing his egg on his face, called that a speak-o.
Stupid is as Stupid does
But that’s not all. More videos have surfaced starring Professor Gruber. One of his most memorable lines is that “lack of transparency is a huge political advantage”. He says that if voters understood that healthy people would be paying for healthcare for sick people they would oppose the bill, because they’re stupid.
Ron Fournier of National Journal and an ObamaCare supporter now says the law was built on a foundation of lies.
Progressives believe in government by experts. Gruber is an expert. For him, telling the truth would have been nice but he’d rather “have the law than not”. Jonah Goldberg wrote a great book called Liberal Fascism. Gruber fits the bill.
You may be wondering who was the crack investigative reporter who dug up these videos. It was some guy in his basement. He’s an investment adviser named Rich Weinstein. David Weigel has a great story in Bloomberg about him.
State Exchange Subsidies
The DC Court of Appeals ruled that the Affordable Care Act means what it says. You have to buy insurance from a state exchange to qualify for a subsidy. If the ruling is upheld by the Supreme Court, ObamaCare will be in big trouble.
ObamaCare supporters are insisting that the law, as it’s written, does not express the intent of Congress. It’s just a type-o.
State Exchanges
MIT whiz Jonathan Gruber insists there is no way ObamaCare tax credits were meant to be restricted to state exchanges. And he should know, he helped write the law. Except that videos have surfaced showing Gruber insisting that if governors don’t set up state exchanges they will deny their own citizens ObamaCare tax credits. And not only that, they’ll be forced to subsidize policy holders in other states! Gruber’s response is that was a “speak-o”.
Kevin Obrien in the Plain Dealer is on the case. So is Megan McArdle in Bloomberg, and Jonathan Keim in National review.
Affordable Care Act Subsidies
We have to pass the bill so we can find out what’s in it. The bill passed, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals has read it, and found out what’s not in it. The Affordable Care Act says subsidies are available for plans purchased on state run exchanges. That was an inducement for states to set up their own exchanges. Still, 36 states chose not to build exchanges and left the job to the feds. People with plans from Federal exchanges aren’t eligible for subsidies, says the court.
Subsidies All Around
Another court – the Fourth Circuit -says the plain language in the bill wasn’t the intent of Congress. In other words Congress didn’t mean what it said. Not an unreasonable assumption.
For now the IRS will continue to allow subsidies for health care plans bought on federal exchanges.
