[July 23, 2014]A
federal court has struck down a provision of the Affordable Care Act
(Obamacare) that provided for subsidies to help pay premiums for
people who qualified for low-income assistance. The 2-1 decision
ruled the states that established the exchange are allowed to
provide the subsidies but the law did not allow for the federal
government to provide the subsidies. The court ruling will affect
approximately 4.7 million people in the 36 states that did not
establish an exchange for people to purchase the Obamacare insurance
through.
Therefore, according to the ruling the people will have to begin paying the
full amount of the premium, which of course, was determined at the time of
purchase they were unable to make the payment and needed the subsidy. It is
doubtful that many of them would be in a position to make the full payment
without the subsidy now.
Of course it is likely the government will appeal the case to the Supreme
Court so it may be heard in the final, highest level. If the provision for
subsidies from the federal government is struck down and the federal court’s
ruling is upheld, the almost five million people will have their insurance
cancelled if they cannot pay the premium. This was a major component of the
Obamacare legislation and an important part of the law. The effect of the
court’s decision will reverberate throughout the nation in not only the
ability to pay issue, but also the coverage lapsing for people who had
“pre-conditions” and were covered by the Obamacare insurance in spite of
that pre-condition. It will create a nightmare to determine the cost of
premiums for not only that group, but for everyone who enrolled in the plan.
Keep in mind; premiums were adjusted upward for everyone to compensate for
the groups of people who would make more frequent claims and the groups of
people who would need subsidies. If this decision is sustained there will
have to be some kind of adjustment made on premiums for everyone. That could
prove to be a significant glitch in the software system as well.
One would expect that in 2009 and 2010 when the legislation was being
discussed and crafted by the democrats who wrote the thousands of pages in
the bill these kinds of glitches would have been discovered and written in
such a way as to avoid such unconstitutional judgments now being made.
Instead of the President of the United States attempting to bypass Congress
and re-write the law as he has done, it would have been simpler to create
the legislation in a way that could have avoided all this heartache for
millions of people.
We have to remember, however, the democrats wanted to go it alone. They in
essence refused any bi-partisan work on the bill by shutting out the
republican members of the House and Senate. When the bill was being
formulated it was done, not in any transparent way, but in a unilateral way
with the democrats behind closed doors writing it with only one socialistic
perspective that would eventually take control of one-sixth of the American
economy. When it was finally crafted, the President, Leader of the Senate
and the Speaker of the House, Barak Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi
worked hard to have it passed with such speed the members of the Congress
had little time to even read it. That was when Nancy Pelosi, then the
Speaker of the House of Representatives said, “We need to pass the bill so
we can read it and find out what is in it.”
Of course by now most Americans are finding out what was in it.
When the President said it was going to be “Affordable” as the name
of the law implied, millions of Americans discovered their premiums
increased significantly. When the President and other democrats said
Americans could keep their current policies if they liked it, they
discovered it was not true; they lost their policies and were forced
to have other ones put in their place. When the President and other
democrats promised they could keep their doctors that too turned out
to be untrue. From the beginning of the signing by the President the
bill became law, it has been discovered that provisions in the law
has significantly changed the lives of millions of Americans as the
implementation roll-out has proceeded. Consequently, the President
has made many changes to the law with his “pen and phone” by
circumventing Congress and failing to implement the law as was
passed and signed.
Not only have provisions of the law been struck down now by a
three-member federal court, but provisions of it have been struck
down by the United States Supreme Court. It makes me wonder if it is
wise for democrats to venture off on their own with their own
perspectives in mind to formulate a bill that has such far-reaching
consequences affecting the American people. Even though
Congressional members exempted themselves from the provision of the
law, it has been a nightmare for almost everyone during the
implementation phase. One has to ask how it is possible for a group
of law-makers like the democrats to sit down and write a law without
the input from the opposition party, rejecting all suggestions made
by the opposition party, moving forward to construct the bill along
a one-party line, force it down the throats of all Americans,
exempting themselves of course, and not be able to make the bill so
iron-clad perfect to have been a benefit to most Americans rather
than the dismal nightmare it has been. Most of the democrats who
worked on that bill were attorneys and should have known better; in
fact the President himself claims to be a “Constitutional Expert
Attorney” and yet, this is the debacle we have faced from the very
beginning of the implementation process. I wonder what we may expect
next.
