Obama Judge Trolls Obamacare Opponents With Cheeky Pizza Analogy [View all]

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Last edited Tue Jul 22, 2014, 03:01 PM - Edit history (1)

Source: TPM

An Obama-appointed judge swiped challengers of Obamacare subsidies in an opinion Tuesday upholding subsidies via the federal exchange. The lawsuit charged that the statute confines the subsidies to state-run exchanges.

Judge Andre M. Davis, confirmed by the Senate in 2009 by a vote of 72-16, sought to take down the challengers' claims with an amusing pizza analogy.

Here's the excerpt from his opinion in the 3-0 ruling for the law:

In fact, Appellants’ reading is not literal; it’s cramped. No case stands for the proposition that literal readings should take place in a vacuum, acontextually, and untethered from other parts of the operative text; indeed, the case law indicates the opposite. ... So does common sense: If I ask for pizza from Pizza Hut for lunch but clarify that I would be fine with a pizza from Domino’s, and I then specify that I want ham and pepperoni on my pizza from Pizza Hut, my friend who returns from Domino’s with a ham and pepperoni pizza has still complied with a literal construction of my lunch order. That is this case: Congress specified that Exchanges should be established and run by the states, but the contingency provision permits federal officials to act in place of the state when it fails to establish an Exchange.

Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/obama-judge-trolls-obamacare-opponents

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http://www.scribd.com/doc/234783340/ACA-4th-Circuit-Ruling
ruling


Judge Harry Edwards Issues Blistering Dissent Slamming 'Nonsense' Obamacare Decision

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Writing the court's majority opinion, Judge Thomas Griffith, an appointee of former President George W. Bush (R), argued that the law’s insurance subsidies apply only to states that have created their own exchanges, thereby invalidating an IRS regulation permitting nationwide subsidies.

But Senior Judge Harry T. Edwards, appointed by former President Jimmy Carter (D), sharply disagreed with the conservatives on the court.

"This case is about Appellants’ not-so-veiled attempt to gut the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act," Edwards wrote in his dissent Tuesday. "This claim is nonsense, made up out of whole cloth. There is no credible evidence in the record that Congress intended to condition subsidies on whether a State, as opposed to HHS, established the Exchange."

Edwards' full opinion:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/22/judge-harry-edwards-obamacare-ruling_n_5609897.html