Don't Panic!
For two wholes hours, folks who had bought their own insurance on a federal-not-state health exchange were faced with a predicament. The DC Circuit Court did what everyone knew that it was going to do and declared "We want to take back your ACA insurance in time to influence this fall's Congressional election!" Yes, that is what they said. You just had to read between the lines.
Luckily, two hours later, another court said "Who are you kidding?" and gave those of us who purchased ACA insurance on federal exchanges back our health insurance.
Now it is in the hands of the US Supreme Court. And the Koch Brothers want us to remember that the Supreme Court can be supremely stupid and partisan (Bush v. Gore, Citizens United, No Medicaid for Poor Folks in Red States). So that we will panic. So that we will begin wringing our hands. So that doctors will stop scheduling surgery and hospitals will start demanding cash up front...
But think about it. Which financial interests in this country stand to benefit if the Koch Brothers have their way and millions of Americans retroactively lose their health insurance? Not the hospital chains that will have to reimburse insurance companies. Not the pharmacies that will have to reimburse insurance companies. Not the insurance companies that will have to reimburse the federal government. A whole lot of special interests in the US will be out a whole lot of money---and I do not think that the money loving SCOTUS will be willing to go against the interest of the health insurance industry, pharmaceutical industry and medical industrial complex all at the same time. Just to curry favor with the Koch Brothers. And maybe influence the outcomes of a handful of Congressional elections. Maybe.
This, dear readers, looks to me like sound and fury signifying nothing. The result of this little skirmish is more likely to be another deep division in the ranks of Republicans, many of whom have begun to realize that megalomaniacs like the Kochs and Sheldon Adelson do not want what is best for Corporate America as a whole. They want what they want! And if they end up driving five or six other businesses bankrupt, the Kochs could care less.
Divide and conquer. It is very amusing watching the Republicans do it to themselves.
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