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SpiderHyphenMan posted:This is really bad, isn't it? It is bad, yes. There was no reason to vote to take the case unless the people voting to take it wanted to overturn the subsidies. That said, before they could strangle it in its crib entirely without taking anything away from someone, and Roberts blinked. Now, they'll actually be taking away subsidies from people who have them. I think the ACA is still favored to win, but it's got a non-zero chance of losing which is higher than it was yesterday.
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Nov 7, 2014 20:30
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Roberts was the deciding vote on the ACA case to begin with, so this is really all on him as far as what he wants to do. So I assume the worst. Odds are he wants to make up for pissing off the right-wing when he upheld the law.
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Nov 7, 2014 20:34
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Do any of the SCOTUS Justices really care about party politics? I would guess when you get to the lifer position you just do whatever you want and go by your own personal biases. It's not like sucking up to the right wing is going to influence his career and I would think that how you are remembered in legal history would be more important than making sure politicians are happy. I'm not sure how that influences this decision though.
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Nov 7, 2014 20:36
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Radish posted:Do any of the SCOTUS Justices really care about party politics? I would guess when you get to the lifer position you just do whatever you want and go by your own personal biases. It's not like sucking up to the right wing is going to influence his career and I would think that how you are remembered in legal history would be more important than making sure politicians are happy. I'm not sure how that influences this decision though.
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Nov 7, 2014 20:38
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FlamingLiberal posted:Thomas' wife worked with Republican groups devoted to repealing Obamacare.
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Nov 7, 2014 20:40
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FlamingLiberal posted:Thomas' wife worked with Republican groups devoted to repealing Obamacare. Doesn't that come down to personal corruption though? I mean I can understand when you are unethical and making a decision to help your lobbyist wife, but does Roberts have any personal vested interest in gutting Obamacare?
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Nov 7, 2014 20:40
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The Warszawa posted:Yeah, I've had that moment with Thomas - he's really gregarious. Lucky. At my Thomas meet and greet all I got was a crummy can of coke.
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Nov 7, 2014 20:47
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Gaussian posted:But of course he won't recuse himself. And yet it will have absolutely no impact on his decision. Seriously, if there's one justice I trust not to be swayed by politics, it's Thomas - he's too crazy.
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Nov 7, 2014 20:48
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fosborb posted:Lucky. At my Thomas meet and greet all I got was a crummy can of coke. Yeah you did. Radish posted:Do any of the SCOTUS Justices really care about party politics? I would guess when you get to the lifer position you just do whatever you want and go by your own personal biases. It's not like sucking up to the right wing is going to influence his career and I would think that how you are remembered in legal history would be more important than making sure politicians are happy. I'm not sure how that influences this decision though. Yes and no - Ginsburg, for example, definitely looks at the composition of the Democratic caucus when making decisions like "watch or box." In terms of personal advancement, no, they're at the pinnacle.
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Nov 7, 2014 21:13
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evilweasel posted:It is bad, yes. There was no reason to vote to take the case unless the people voting to take it wanted to overturn the subsidies. Am I parsing your opinion correctly that Alito/Scalia/Kennedy/Thomas want another bite at the apple and Roberts will probably side with the liberal wing? If so, I agree it's a bet I'd take solely as a poker player, but man I don't have a lot of personal optimism after this midterm.  At this point, I'm not even counting on the Supremes to be rational actors anymore. I swear it feels like we're fighting against Cthulhu most of the time. Our choices are "apocalypse" and "status quo" and we keep doing what we can to limit the damage and fight back, but eventually Dread Lord Reagan will rise from the depths and usher in a new era of madness no matter what we do. Chokes McGee fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Nov 7, 2014 |
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Nov 7, 2014 21:43
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Chokes McGee posted:Am I parsing your opinion correctly that Alito/Scalia/Kennedy/Thomas want another bite at the apple and Roberts will probably side with the liberal wing? If so, I agree it's a bet I'd take solely as a poker player, but man I don't have a lot of personal optimism after this midterm. That's my guess, yeah. Could easily turn out that Roberts is willing to go after the ACA now, and there's always the chance one of the conservatives feels this argument is too dumb even for them. But I think 5/4 is the only reasonably likely outcome and it's really wherever Roberts decides to go.
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Nov 7, 2014 22:14
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evilweasel posted:That's my guess, yeah. Could easily turn out that Roberts is willing to go after the ACA now, and there's always the chance one of the conservatives feels this argument is too dumb even for them. But I think 5/4 is the only reasonably likely outcome and it's really wherever Roberts decides to go. Splendid. 
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Nov 7, 2014 22:16
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The Warszawa posted:Yeah you did. In terms of personal professional advancement they are, but they all have families and personal connections to maintain. Getting your children or extended family cush jobs is a lot easier when you're not consistently pissing off your golfing buddies. I don't think there's some sort of pay for play thing going on with any of them, but party politics is certainly an influence when the majority of your social network is deeply enmeshed in those politics.
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Nov 7, 2014 22:42
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evilweasel posted:That's my guess, yeah. Could easily turn out that Roberts is willing to go after the ACA now, and there's always the chance one of the conservatives feels this argument is too dumb even for them. But I think 5/4 is the only reasonably likely outcome and it's really wherever Roberts decides to go. My only problem with this line of thinking is that Roberts seems pretty tight with the conservative bloc. I don't think they would've been this quick to jump at cert if they didn't know they had five votes. There's literally no other reason I can see to take this thing on this quick other than wanting to put a stake in it.
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Nov 7, 2014 23:02
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Is it possible that a few justices from the left wanted to grant cert to clarify if it was ambiguous wording (i.e. Chevron deference) versus clear wording? Or do they typically not do that when the result would be the same?
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Nov 7, 2014 23:11
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esquilax posted:Is it possible that a few justices from the left wanted to grant cert to clarify if it was ambiguous wording (i.e. Chevron deference) versus clear wording? Or do they typically not do that when the result would be the same? The Supreme Court denies almost all cert requests: they wouldn't take one just to clear up a minor error that still got the same result that won't be useful for cases going forward.
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Nov 7, 2014 23:19
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fosborb posted:Lucky. At my Thomas meet and greet all I got was a crummy can of coke. You sound kind of nutty.
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Nov 8, 2014 01:21
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Not My Leg posted:And yet it will have absolutely no impact on his decision. Seriously, if there's one justice I trust not to be swayed by politics, it's Thomas - he's too crazy. No, he's too principled. I respect him for that. It's his principles that are nuts.
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Nov 8, 2014 01:32
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GreyjoyBastard posted:No, he's too principled. I respect him for that. And Hitler's work ethic was second to none.
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Nov 8, 2014 03:35
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FAUXTON posted:And Hitler's work ethic was second to none. That was meth actually.
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Nov 8, 2014 03:36
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Maybe all the justices think this argument is so stupid they've agreed to pull a Brown v Board and come down 9-0 against so conservatives will shut the gently caress up and use the political process to repeal this law if they hate it so drat much.
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Nov 8, 2014 03:54
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hobbesmaster posted:That was meth actually. Doesn't make it any less respectable than Thomas' highly consistent shitheelery.
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Nov 8, 2014 04:11
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VitalSigns posted:Maybe all the justices think this argument is so stupid they've agreed to pull a Brown v Board and come down 9-0 against so conservatives will shut the gently caress up and use the political process to repeal this law if they hate it so drat much. With other Supreme Courts I'd perhaps buy this. With a Supreme Court that has Scalia and Alito on it… not so much.
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Nov 8, 2014 05:11
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hahaha the courts shouldn't be hasty in striking down Obamacare, they should step back and let political process with in order to avoid creating a social rift where political consensus would have been otherwise possible Someone distill that duran to 140 characters tia
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Nov 8, 2014 05:19
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We all deserve the opportunity to become the heroes of our own repealing-Obamacare story.
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Nov 8, 2014 05:28
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WhiskeyJuvenile posted:hahaha the courts shouldn't be hasty in striking down Obamacare, they should step back and let political process with in order to avoid creating a social rift where political consensus would have been otherwise possible Ain't this the truth.
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Nov 8, 2014 05:35
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Johnathan Adler's writing on the issue is the most blatantly disingenuous stuff I have ever read on a legal case. It is so clearly working backwards from the conclusion he wants to reach its ridiculous. Regarding the granting of cert., I wonder how much of deciding to take it this early is based on strategic calculations. Had it been taken up next term instead of this one, the decision would have come down in the middle of an election year, which would have lead to much greater pressure to set up state exchanges in case Halbig is successful.
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Nov 8, 2014 05:46
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evilweasel posted:The Supreme Court denies almost all cert requests: they wouldn't take one just to clear up a minor error that still got the same result that won't be useful for cases going forward. Least favorite words of the previously winning side: "cert granted" Though occasionally a case is taken to settle a question or clarify a legal point...but usually only on cases that have some precedent value. I don't think that's the case here. Cert granted usually means previous winner is about to get hosed.
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Nov 8, 2014 11:17
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ActusRhesus posted:Least favorite words of the previously winning side: "cert granted" http://sblog.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/SCOTUSblog_scorecard_OT13.pdf
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Nov 8, 2014 17:39
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How would this bill even work without the subsidies? Without the subsidies it's just mandated insurance, right?
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Nov 9, 2014 00:37
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I'm guessing that it wouldn't work at all, since the states that didn't set up their own exchanges probably aren't run by people who would be in a big hurry to do so now. Presumably this would give the GOP an excellent excuse to gut or repeal the PPACA without outrage.
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Nov 9, 2014 01:43
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Grapplejack posted:How would this bill even work without the subsidies? Without the subsidies it's just mandated insurance, right? This lawsuit would not be a problem at any of the states that have their own exchanges. Presumably, the states that don't have their own exchanges but expanded medicare would likely easily adjust by symbolically contracting the federal exchange as provider of the state exchange (I think it is highly unlikely that states that expanded medicare would prevent middle class subsidies). This would mean that if the supreme court decides subsidies don't apply to the federal exchange, "only" 19 states would have an issue. And at that point it becomes a game of political chicken: does the political pressure cause these states to create state exchanges, or will senate democrats give in first and gut the law? These 19 states have 4, maybe 5 (depending on LA's runoff) non-Republican senators combined. If the pressure makes them flip, they'd be close to being able to avoid a filibuster in case of a vote on repeal. Of course, a possible alternative is that the supreme court rules against the federal subsidies and then decide to scrap the whole law by arguing that it would then become unworkable. But that would require a massively inconsistent interpretation of the law. Maarek posted:I'm guessing that it wouldn't work at all, since the states that didn't set up their own exchanges probably aren't run by people who would be in a big hurry to do so now. Presumably this would give the GOP an excellent excuse to gut or repeal the PPACA without outrage. A number of states that did not set up exchanges set up medicaid expansion. Meaning that they likely just decided to free ride on federal exchanges. I doubt that PA or NJ, for example, would expand medicaid and then decide that implementing a state wrap around the federal exchange would be a bridge too far. joepinetree fucked around with this message at 02:26 on Nov 9, 2014 |
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Nov 9, 2014 02:19
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joepinetree posted:A number of states that did not set up exchanges set up medicaid expansion. Meaning that they likely just decided to free ride on federal exchanges. I doubt that PA or NJ, for example, would expand medicaid and then decide that implementing a state wrap around the federal exchange would be a bridge too far. Yeah, but I bet a number of those states are now controlled by Republicans who won't do any such thing. PA, for example, has a Republican state legislature despite having turned out Corbett as governor.
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Nov 9, 2014 03:48
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It's not actually necessarily clear that, under this hypothetical, Republican state legislatures would feel clear taking all of the blame for a failure to maintain the care system- the optics would be too favorable to Democratic campaigns.
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Nov 9, 2014 03:53
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Grapplejack posted:How would this bill even work without the subsidies? Without the subsidies it's just mandated insurance, right? It'd royally gently caress people in GOP-held states, and the GOP can then turn to all of them and say "look at how Obamacare's loving you over, now do the right thing and vote Republican in 2016 so we can get rid of this terrible Obamacare." It will work. The Democrats couldn't capitalize on the shutdown and they won't capitalize on the GOP loving millions of people on subsidies.
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Nov 9, 2014 05:15
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Maarek posted:Yeah, but I bet a number of those states are now controlled by Republicans who won't do any such thing. PA, for example, has a Republican state legislature despite having turned out Corbett as governor. PA approved medicaid expansion this year, already under a republican state legislature. Evil Fluffy posted:It'd royally gently caress people in GOP-held states, and the GOP can then turn to all of them and say "look at how Obamacare's loving you over, now do the right thing and vote Republican in 2016 so we can get rid of this terrible Obamacare." Alternatively, it would also mean that people in states who have set up exchanges would not only lose the subsidies, but also their coverage. Which would mean lots of angry middle class voters in those states. It is far from a foregone conclusion which way this thing will go, if indeed the SC strikes down the subsidies for federal exchanges.
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Nov 9, 2014 06:20
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joepinetree posted:Alternatively, it would also mean that people in states who have set up exchanges would not only lose the subsidies, but also their coverage. Which would mean lots of angry middle class voters in those states. The problem with this is that the average voter won't blame the Republicans for this, they'll blame the supreme court. A better pivot is to say "Okay, the courts ruled this. We now call on Republicans to put forth a serious bill to restore health care for all these affected people. You do it, I'll sign it. You'll do it, right? Because they're your consistutents?" And then hammer that message home into everyone's skulls until there's no doubt the republicans own this mess. One thing this election taught me is you can't trust people to connect the dots themselves. At ANY level. Possibly including two dots literally next to each other. Chokes McGee fucked around with this message at 06:27 on Nov 9, 2014 |
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Nov 9, 2014 06:25
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Chokes McGee posted:The problem with this is that the average voter won't blame the Republicans for this, they'll blame the supreme court. If the supreme court strikes down subsidies in federal exchanges, there are three possible fixes: changing the language of the PPACA to include "and federal...", states create their own exchanges, even if it is just a wrap around the federal exchange, or the whole thing is scrapped and started over from scratch. The only one that threatens PPACA is the last one, and whatever issues democrats have with messaging and so on, this one directly involves two of the most popular provisions of the plan (65% of republicans, 77% overall support the subsidies, even more support the exchanges). Granted, there is a level of dysfunction that makes anything difficult to predict. But it would take an actual vote repeal the whole thing, and this one would be a vote to strip millions of coverage they already have. Some republican governors, like in Utah and TN, are already looking for any possible excuse to expand medicaid, they just need a way to save face. Same thing would likely apply in congress: they'd negotiate something, anything that allows them to save face and cave in to a "fix" adding "federal" to the law. In terms of repealing PPACA, the best case scenario for Republicans would be if the SC not only found the subsidies for federal exchanges unlawful, but then also decided to scrap the law as unworkable without the subsidies. But that would likely be a bridge too far, because it would require seriously arguing that congress passed a law with a self destruct clause. All in all, I still think that the result will be a 5-4 vote for keeping it as it is.
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Nov 9, 2014 07:05
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Evil Fluffy posted:It'd royally gently caress people in GOP-held states, and the GOP can then turn to all of them and say "look at how Obamacare's loving you over, now do the right thing and vote Republican in 2016 so we can get rid of this terrible Obamacare." No, see, those people already have had Obamacare. They liked having insurance. If it suddenly gets taken away from them they're not going to go "yeah, down with Obamacare", they're going to want their health insurance back. And they're going to be very unhappy when they realize that their state legislature could easily give it back to them at no cost to the state.
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Nov 9, 2014 15:59
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Chokes McGee posted:The problem with this is that the average voter won't blame the Republicans for this, they'll blame the supreme court. Number of times people actually care about the Supreme Court as a separate entity:
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Nov 9, 2014 16:00
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