JimBowie1958
Old Fogey
- Sep 25, 2011
- 63,590
- 16,757
- 2,220
So the erudite but not-too-clever Obama regime gave Republicans the tools to bring down the ACA though they have not yet done so.
This is what happens to government programs that are not brought about through Constitutionally valid process. Your opponents take over and undo all you built by the same arbitrary means you built it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/03/us/politics/obama-trump-health-law.html?_r=0
This is what happens to government programs that are not brought about through Constitutionally valid process. Your opponents take over and undo all you built by the same arbitrary means you built it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/03/us/politics/obama-trump-health-law.html?_r=0
Obama administration officials knew they were on shaky ground in spending billions of dollars on health insurance subsidies without clear authority. But they did not think a long-shot court challenge by House Republicans was cause for deep concern.
For one thing, they would be out of office by the time a final ruling in the case, filed in 2014, was handed down. They also believed that a preliminary finding against the administration would ultimately be tossed out. Finally, they figured that President Hillary Clinton could take care of the problem, if necessary.
Well, they are out of office, Mrs. Clinton is not president and the uncertain status of the cost-sharing payments now looms as the biggest threat to the stability of the insurance exchanges created under the Affordable Care Act. A dubious decision made by the previous White House has handed the current administration a powerful weapon to wield against the health care legislation that it despises.
“The administration should not have found an appropriation where none existed,” said Nicholas Bagley, a University of Michigan law professor who has studied and written about the issue. “The Obama administration argument that the Affordable Care Act included an appropriation for the cost-sharing payments never held water.”
Judge Rosemary M. Collyer agreed with that assertion last year. She ruled that the Obama administration had no explicit authority to pay as much as $130 billion over 10 years to insurance companies to cover out-of-pocket health costs for millions of lower-income Americans obtaining insurance on the new health exchanges. At the same time, she found that the Republican-led House had the standing to sue the administration — a potentially far-reaching decision that many constitutional law experts predicted would be overturned on appeal, causing the suit to be dismissed.
Then November’s election upended all the calculations. Donald J. Trump won, and his interest in defending the executive branch against the House lawsuit was nonexistent given his antipathy for the health care law.
But neither he nor congressional Republicans were in any hurry to drop the appeal initiated by the Obama administration because that would mean the subsidies would be immediately cut off, throwing the health insurance market into turmoil. Instead, the lawsuit has been essentially suspended and the payments have become a new bargaining chip in Washington. The administration is essentially doling them out on a month-to-month basis while Republicans struggle to come together on their own health care replacement plan.
Republicans say the fight over the subsidies is just one element contributing to a failure of the health care law.
For one thing, they would be out of office by the time a final ruling in the case, filed in 2014, was handed down. They also believed that a preliminary finding against the administration would ultimately be tossed out. Finally, they figured that President Hillary Clinton could take care of the problem, if necessary.
Well, they are out of office, Mrs. Clinton is not president and the uncertain status of the cost-sharing payments now looms as the biggest threat to the stability of the insurance exchanges created under the Affordable Care Act. A dubious decision made by the previous White House has handed the current administration a powerful weapon to wield against the health care legislation that it despises.
“The administration should not have found an appropriation where none existed,” said Nicholas Bagley, a University of Michigan law professor who has studied and written about the issue. “The Obama administration argument that the Affordable Care Act included an appropriation for the cost-sharing payments never held water.”
Judge Rosemary M. Collyer agreed with that assertion last year. She ruled that the Obama administration had no explicit authority to pay as much as $130 billion over 10 years to insurance companies to cover out-of-pocket health costs for millions of lower-income Americans obtaining insurance on the new health exchanges. At the same time, she found that the Republican-led House had the standing to sue the administration — a potentially far-reaching decision that many constitutional law experts predicted would be overturned on appeal, causing the suit to be dismissed.
Then November’s election upended all the calculations. Donald J. Trump won, and his interest in defending the executive branch against the House lawsuit was nonexistent given his antipathy for the health care law.
But neither he nor congressional Republicans were in any hurry to drop the appeal initiated by the Obama administration because that would mean the subsidies would be immediately cut off, throwing the health insurance market into turmoil. Instead, the lawsuit has been essentially suspended and the payments have become a new bargaining chip in Washington. The administration is essentially doling them out on a month-to-month basis while Republicans struggle to come together on their own health care replacement plan.
Republicans say the fight over the subsidies is just one element contributing to a failure of the health care law.