s Supreme Court case on ObamaCare nears, focus is on plaintiffs and GOP's post-decision plan

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Fox News:

The simmering debate about ObamaCare reemerged in Washington this week amid questions about the plaintiffs in the upcoming Supreme Court case on the health law and Republicans sounding more urgent about preparing for the ruling.

 

The high court will hear arguments in early March over whether the health-care law allows people in states without their own insurance markets to receive federal tax credits that reduce coverage costs.

 

The number of uninsured could rise by 8 million if the subsidies disappear, two independent think tanks have estimated.

 

“We have to have a contingency plan,” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said Friday.

 

Republicans and Democrats agree that a ruling for the plaintiffs could wipe out subsidies for millions of Americans, in three-fourths of U.S. states, and result in the law being rewritten.

 

A ruling is not expected until at least June. Ryan did not say Friday when a contingency plan would be finished but made clear it would not be fixes to the law.

 

“The idea is not to make ObamaCare work better or actually authorize ObamaCare,” he said.

 

Republicans, who control the Congress after having won the Senate in November, say dismantling ObamaCare remains a priority. But they appear to think their best chance of undoing the 2010 law is the court case. And they have so far taken a wait-and-see approach, instead of trying to immediately repeal the law or dismantle it in parts.

 

Questions are being asked about the four challengers’ legal right to bring their lawsuit, though experts don’t think court will be deterred in deciding King v. Burwell, referring to Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell.

 

The challengers, who live in Virginia, object to being forced to get insurance or pay a penalty. If the subsidies were not available, they would not pay a penalty for failing to be insured because even the cheapest health plan would be too costly, according to sworn statements they filed in 2013.

 

But the Wall Street Journal reported that two are Vietnam veterans who probably could obtain health care through the Department of Veterans Affairs, meaning they would not be affected by the subsidies issue. The newspaper and Mother Jones reported that a third plaintiff lived in a motel at the time that her address and age were used to calculate the cost of insurance. She now lives elsewhere in the state.

 

The fourth is a substitute school teacher in Richmond who said she could not recall how she became involved in the case.

 

The Competitive Enterprise Institute, an anti-regulatory group, is paying for the legal challenges and recruited the four.

________

 

Trying to make their case before the Court.

[Draggingtree]

O-Care fans: SCOTUS case 'unraveling'

 

By Sarah Ferris - 02/13/15 06:00 AM EST

 

Supporters of ObamaCare think they’ve found a fatal flaw in the GOP-led legal challenge to the healthcare law at the Supreme Court.

Legal experts in favor of the Affordable Care Act say new information unearthed about the plaintiffs in King v. Burwell could derail the case before the justices have a chance to rule.

 

“The case made by the [Affordable Care Act]’s opponents is unraveling around them,” Brianne Good and Joey Meyer, legal experts from the progressive group Constitutional Accountability Center, wrote in a blog this week.

http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/232725-obamacare-fans-scotus-case-unraveling

[Draggingtree]

Michael F. Cannon Guest

Posted Mon, November 10th, 2014 5:06 pm

Email Michael F.

 

Symposium: Seven myths about King v. Burwell

Michael F. Cannon (@mfcannon) is director of health policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute and coauthor (with Jonathan H. Adler) of the leading academic treatment of King v. Burwell, “Taxation Without Representation: The Illegal IRS Rule to Expand Tax Credits Under the PPACA,” Health Matrix: Journal of Law-Medicine 23, No. 1 (2013): 119-195.

 

The Supreme Court has granted cert. in King v. Burwell, one of four cases challenging the IRS’s ongoing expansion of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s main taxing and spending provisions beyond the clear and unambiguous limits imposed by Congress. Here I will attempt to dispel common myths surrounding these “Obamacare” cases.

Myth #1: King v. Burwell is a challenge to the ACA.

 

It is legally and factually incorrect to describe these cases as “challenges to the ACA.” This is particularly important because the actual legal posture of these cases is far more troubling.

The plaintiffs in King are not asking the Supreme Court to block any part of the ACA. They are asking the Court to uphold the Act by blocking the IRS’s unilateral attempt to strike down the Act’s clear language. Here’s how.

 

Section 1311 directs states to establish exchanges, and Section 1321 directs the federal government to establish exchanges “within” any state that fails to do so.

http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/11/symposium-seven-myths-about-king-v-burwell/