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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSlate: Sotomayor May Have Saved Obamacare
In a dispatch on King v. Burwell, the closely watched Obamacare challenge, NPRs Nina Totenberg observed that the plaintiffs attorney, Michael Carvin, argued before the Supreme Court with red-faced passion. Indeed, Justice Sonia Sotomayor hadnt even finished the preamble to her first question when Carvin interrupted her to finish an earlier thought. He then caught himself and apologized, at which point Sotomayor tempered him: Take a breath.
Carvin needed that moment, because Sotomayor was about to ask a bombshell question about federalism, a subject that later dominated a key portion of the hearing. In setting it up, she said she was concerned by Carvins reading of the Affordable Care Actin essence, that Congress wrote it so that only states with their own insurance exchanges receive federal subsidies. The problem with that reading, Sotomayor noted, is that lawmakers gave states a choice: set up exchanges of your own, or let the federal government do it for you via healthcare.gov.
That choice is not at issue in King. The dual system of federal and state exchanges is a feature of the law. And to Sotomayor, this choice cannot be squared with Carvins interpretation that tax subsidies are available only to people participating in state-run exchanges. Thats a constitutional problem. If we read it the way youre saying, she said, then were going to read the statute as intruding on the federal-state relationship, because then the states are going to be coerced into establishing their own exchanges.
Thats the bombshell. Because if Carvin is correct and a state chooses not to set up its own exchangeand thus loses federal subsidiesSotomayor said, were going to have the death spiral that this system was created to avoid. And she went on to list the parade of horribles that would follow from this so-called choice, including destabilized insurance markets and skyrocketing premiums. Tell me how that is not coercive in an unconstitutional way? Sotomayor asked.
THE REST OF THE STORY:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2015/03/sotomayor_saved_obamacare_she_may_have_convinced_kennedy_and_roberts_in.html
PoliticAverse
(26,366 posts)funding if they opted out of the Medicaid expansion part of the ACA.
elleng
(130,895 posts)Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)PoliticAverse
(26,366 posts)to lose all their (already existing) Medicaid funding if they didn't participate in the expansion
and Sotomayer disagreed, but here it appears she might think it is coercive to require states
to set up their own exchanges.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)care stocks soared after the hearing.
7 Justices agreed with the coercion argument before, how do they get out of applying the same principal here?
sobenji
(316 posts)geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)the entire individual insurance market via regulation is quite another
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)spanone
(135,830 posts)Thank you, President Obama, for nominating this woman!
freshwest
(53,661 posts)Kath1
(4,309 posts)Let's not forget that!
Hulk
(6,699 posts)...along with Kagan and Bader Ginsburg.
We are cursed to have such hacks as thomas, alito and scalia - and maybe even roberts (who at least seems to have some sort of conscience at times).
Is this really the way the Supreme Court is supposed to act?
Iliyah
(25,111 posts)That's what the asshole 5 justices in their uncaring minds think.
Andy823
(11,495 posts)pangaia
(24,324 posts)most brilliant and most perceptive judges on the SC are,if I may so so....ah, hem..., of the female persuasion,
And Justice Sotomayor's autobiography is absolutely stunning.
DonCoquixote
(13,616 posts)when many people seemed to give Sotomayor short shrift. "She is not liberal enough" was the only cry they could udder, despite the fact she had fought billionaires ever since the days of the Baseball strike.
Well, she, and yes Kagan, who many feared woudl turn her back on LGBT marriage, did NOT.
We have one of the few warriors on this court, and we will need her in years to come.
The fact she happens to be the foirst exmaple of a Puerto Rican promoted to a position of power just adds sugar to the coffee.
Wella
(1,827 posts)The argument is actually correct, the product of the tortured process of writing a bill to avoid being seen for exactly what it was.
tavernier
(12,383 posts)And just thanks.