Another Activist Conservative Judge Attempts To Destroy Obamacare

A federal judge in Oklahoma, appointed by George W. Bush, has repeated the same ridiculous argument given by previous activist conservative judges to attempt to stop Obamacare. The claim is that the Affordable Care Act only provides for subsidies for policies purchased on state-run exchanges and not the federal exchange. This is based upon taking one portion of the law, which is poorly written and might suggest this, while ignoring all the other portions of the law which do not make such limitations on who can qualify to receive subsidies.

Previously the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia ruled that subsidies should be available for policy holders regardless of whether they were purchased on a state or the federally run exchange.  The D.C. Court of Appeals ruled in the opposite direction, with two Republicans voting that subsidies should be limited to policies purchased on state exchanges and one Democrat backing the Affordable Care Act. Subsequently the court vacated that decision in order to have the full court rule on this.

Think Progress has more on the case, and the arguments against the view which has only been supported by Republican judges.

The partisan divide on this issue raises some concern about how the Supreme Court might rule. I suspect that Chief Justice John Roberts would again break with the other Republicans and oppose such an effort which would destroy Obamacare as he has done in the past. If for no other reason, he might not want his court to go down in history for keeping the United States as the only major industrial nation without anything approaching universal health care based upon such a frivolous argument. However it is not entirely reassuring to have to hope that Roberts will vote in a reasonable manner.

While Republicans in public would probably support destroying Obamacare in this manner, those who are not totally out of touch with reality might actually prefer that this case does not succeed. While they wouldn’t mind seeing their party take credit for destroying Obamacare in general, despite how successful the law has been, would they really want to be responsible for increasing taxes on millions of Americans by taking away their tax subsidies which help pay for health care coverage?

Republican backers in the insurance industry are also likely to want to see this case fail. The worst case scenario for the insurance industry would be if they are required to provide health insurance to everyone who applies without regard to pre-existing conditions but if they don’t see increased business, and expansion of the risk pool, from sales to those receiving subsidies.

 

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