Will Republicans' First Tax Be For Healthcare Subsidies?

We are in the “home stretch” of the October 2014 Term of the United States Supreme Court. Otherwise not necessarily sensible, the Justices have persistently sought to be out of the District of Columbia before the real heat and humidity of a Washington summer take hold. So, by tradition, the Court makes best efforts to resolve all cases pending after argument by decisions and/or orders issued by the end of June.

A few landmark decisions remain to be made. One of them, King v. Burwell, presents the Court’s third visit with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, as it has come to be called. In Burwell, a challenge was made to federal government funding of certain health care subsidies on the ground that the subsidies violated the express language of Obamacare. The essence of the case has to do with the Obama administration deciding to provide federally-funded subsidies for health care premiums for qualified subscribers who live in States that refused to set up and run a State health care exchange.

Using a carrot and stick approach, when the Congress under Democrat control and the President adopted Obamacare, they included a provision that would make health care premiums more affordable for lower income applicants by offering a subsidy – essentially a tax credit – when such insurance was purchased through an exchange set up by a State.

The States, by a broad majority, declined the temptation and refused to set up State exchanges. For residents in those States, the result was that they would not see subsidies that would make health insurance premiums affordable. Anticipating that costliness would result in low participation rates, the Obama administration unilaterally decided to “interpret” the law as though subsidies would be available to subscribers who obtained insurance through exchanges set up in the States if the States did not set them up.

Verbal gymnastics, at a minimum. Shameless hucksterism in service of the progressive ideology is the more accurate explanation of what they did. Now the Court will answer this question. When it does, it will either allow the hucksterism to continue. The lower court did so, so it might not surprise if they do. But, if the Court finds that the Obama administration's tortured misreading of the statute is incorrect, then there will be millions of Americans with suddenly unaffordable health care.

Of course, the progressives want Republicans to react with fear, and conclude that those that may lose health insurance will hold them accountable at the ballot box if they lose their coverage. For this reason, some Representatives are talking about creating a temporary fix by which those subsidies could continue. With that in mind, here's

A scenario to keep in mind:

Suppose the Supreme Court decision on Obamacare rejects the decision by the Obama administration to offer subsidies to qualified subscribers in States that did not set up their own exchanges.

Suppose Republicans in the House and Senate PANIC that they will bleed angry voters out of all orifices if THEY DON'T create a "TEMPORARY" fix extending to the administration the power to provide the subsidies.

What will have happened?

If that happens, then the REPUBLICAN CONGRESS will have IMPOSED A TAX ON YOU to pay for others' health insurance.

Remember:  The FIRST Obamacare decision by the Supreme Court only upheld the individual mandate because the Court concluded that the "shared responsibility payment" was, in fact, A TAX.

SHARE AND CARE:  Do the Republicans intend TO EXTEND A TAX imposed only by Democrats?

Tell your Republican Representatives and Senators that you will not vote for them again if they do so. 202-224-3121.

Terror at Twenty Thousand Dollars: Obama or O'Gremlin?

I know folks flying with him thought William Shatner was crazy, in that old episode of Twilight Zone, because only he could see the gremlin tearing up the wings of the passenger plane.  Is there anyone beside Gerry that looks out on the wings of American healthcare and misses the destruction being worked by that Gremlin at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?

Here's what prompts my question:

I called Congressman Gerry Connelly's office (my representative, after all), to instruct him to vote against funding enforcement of Obamacare.  As part of that conversation, explaining the damage that the misnomered "'Affordable' Care Act" is inflicting, I explained that my son, who has worked for Trader Joe's for several years, has recently learned that he, along with thousands others of TJ's non-management (part-time) crew would be cast adrift from TJ's insurance coverage.  That marooning of TJ's crew IS THE DIRECT IMPACT OF Obamacare on them.

Just days later I get a close typeset letter from Gerry, confirming his continued faith in Obamacare as the cure for what ails our health care system.

This morning, as I write this, twenty thousand part-time employees of Home Depot are waking up to discover that HD is eliminating health insurance coverage for them.  This IS THE DIRECT IMPACT of Obamacare.  And, to top it off, as I write this word comes that 160,000 Walgreens employees will be out on the insurance market looking for coverage because of the financial impact and costs to their employer of compliance with Obamacare.

Of course, Gerry is for government gerry-mandering of markets.  As the inept chair of the Fairfax Board of Supervisors, he tried to impose the Affordable Garbage Service ordinance on us residents.  Then it was our incompetence to negotiate for garbage service with private companies.  Today it is our incompetence to negotiate with employers and insurance companies.

Gerry's instinct -- ALWAYS WRONG -- is that the government can do better for us what we have the right to do for ourselves.  He is welcome to insist on it, even though he is wrong.  What he is not entitled to do is claim as truth what the facts show to be false.  His FALSE CLAIMS are that Obamacare would "bring down premium costs for families and small businesses," "reduce the deficit," "protect [individuals'] choice of plan and doctor," and "improve access to care[.]"  (I excerpted these Connelly claims from his letter to me, dated September 13, 2013.)

It is a unhealthy mania, a mental illness, for him to insist that Obamacare is having the salutary effects of controlling costs and increasing availability, when costs are spiraling upward, companies are departing markets, and businesses are moving THOUSANDS OFF their prior company-based coverage.  Just as it was an unhealthy mania for the FLIGHT CREW and PASSENGERS on Bill Shatner's flight NOT TO SEE THE IMMINENT PERIL in which he knew them to be.

The O'Gremlin has scarred the Nation fairly badly.  His economic recovery has worse indicators than George W. Bush's recession.  More than 90 million Americans have departed the labor force -- improving employment numbers ARE NOT a reflection of a growing full time work force, but a shrinking pool of those seeking employment.  Record claimants for SNAP, the program formerly known as Food Stamps.  Debilitation of the military.  Increased racial tensions across the Nation.  These are all evidence of the O'Gremlin at work.  Gerry Connelly can whistle past the graveyard ... and I can remind folks of his mania come Election Day 2014.