Obamacare 2014 - Part Deux

* The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, upheld the subsidies, saying that a rule issued by the Internal Revenue Service was “a permissible exercise of the agency’s discretion.”
Ref: NY Times
DonDiego suggests a ruling as to the "permissible exercise" of an agency's discretion is, indeed, a Constitutional Issue. And a well-researched opinion on Congressional intent leads to the conclusion reached by the three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

* DonDiego understands the same thing; he hopes the Supreme Court does the unusual. DonDiego lives on hope.

Well, it isn't a constitutional issue, the constitution provides no insight as to whether Congress has the power to subsidize policies purchased through both state and federal exchanges. Not a consitutional issue.

I suspect you wrote it was a "constitutional" issue without much thought simply because it sounded fancier and more important to you, and sounding fancy and important is sort of your thing.

(Cue the hillbilly banjo act.)

Obama and friends again wish to ignore current law. The Supreme court will again slap him down, I hope.

Romney NEVER would have done that! Oh wait...

I recall that Romney guy, but he's not relevant to the discussion.

Chilcoot's suspicion is incorrect, . . . although fancy and important may be qualities to which poor old DonDiego aspires.

No one is challenging the "power" of Congress to subsidize Obamacare policies purchased through State and Federal exchanges. The question is much narrower, . . . did Congress through the the Obamacare Law, as written, authorize subsidies of policies purchased through the Federal exchange.
It is a Constitutional issue because the Law as written establishes both State and Federal exchanges and states the Government can subsidize policies purchased through the State exchanges. The Law does not address subsidies to policies purchased through the Federal exchange.

The issue is, . . . is the IRS permitted to subsidize policies purchased through the Federal exchange when Congress did not write such a provision into the Law.
If, as DonDiego has suggested, a review of the Congressional debate reveals that provision of subsidies to policies issued through the Federal exchange was intentionally omitted to encourage every State to establish a State exchange, it seems to poor old DonDiego that the intent of Congress was, in fact, to limit subsidies to State exchanges. If this is so, the IRS exceeded its permissible exercise of discretion.
DonDiego respectfully submits this is a Constitutional matter.

No, the question is not constitutional. It's statutory.

Given the language of Obamacare, did the IRS exceed its statutory authority in extending Obamacare subsidies to Americans who purchased their policies via a federally-operated exchange?

Look at how the appellants themselves phrased the issue:

"The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) authorizes federal subsidies for health coverage obtained on an “Exchange established by the State under section 1311 [of the ACA, codified at 42 U.S.C. § 18031].” The issue is whether the IRS may promulgate regulations extending such subsidies to health coverage obtained on Exchanges established instead by the federal government under § 1321 of the ACA, codified at 42 U.S.C. § 18041."

Page 1.

Nothing in the constitution helps us answer that question. If there's something in the constitution that answers it, tell us, neither the parties in Halbig nor the judges who decided it found anything.

Defending this Obomination of a law is asinine. Obaymecare is wrong, period. I hope the Supreme Court does not cave in again and slaps down Obeyme.

I cant think of a worse possible outcome.....for Republicans.

After crying about people losing their doctors because of Obamacare the GOP's big plan is to....remove millions of people from their doctors. I think its going to be entertaining seeing 2014 candidates defend this action. Get your popcorn ready for same great video clips coming to a late night show near you.

The Supreme Court will rule and I don't believe that anyone but Democrats will be blamed. The law passed, and now we're finding out what's in it.