This seems… unwise of the administration: “President Barack Obama is not sweating about the federal exchange subsidies. Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) says that at a roundtable discussion with congressional leaders he asked Obama why the administration hasn’t informed the public that subsidies are an endangered species. The president replied that he doesn’t anticipate the need for a contingency plan.” I mean, it’s not like the Obama administration has a great track record here when it comes to predicting what the Supreme Court will do with Obamacare.
Seriously, it does not. The White House got absolutely blindsided on the Hobby Lobby case, for no good reason; and even the way that the Court upheld the individual mandate messed up implementation of it in ways that the Democrats simply did not anticipate. Contingency planning may be a political minefield, but it’s not as much of one as is, say, having to scramble hastily to try to salvage something from the wreck of your state health care subsidy program.
Ach, well, maybe they’ll get away with it. And maybe they will not. Guess we’ll see!
Via Hot Air – and note that I am quibbling with that site’s interpretation of why Chief Justice Roberts kept the mandate intact, or at least in the form it’s in now. A Chief Justice that allowed public opinion to sway his opinion to that extent would not have, say, finally gone ahead and mercy-killed VRA preclearance. Predicting Supreme Court decision is a mug’s game, but I hope (in a detached, not-particularly sort of way) that the administration understands that, too…
Moe Lane
He’ll probably try to bully it thru if the subsidies get killed by ordering the IRS to give them tax credits in the form of cash hoping they use it for their medical insurance.
Unexpectedly!
Megalomaniacs and other fanatics rarely second guess themselves.
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Roberts already blinked once.
Will he be less likely to do so now that there will be actual negative consequences?
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As long as the Dems and the media keep a solid front that overturn is unthinkable, they have the possibility of bluffing their way through. If the question gets to the language of the law and legislative intent, they’re hosed. And most of them know it. Best to dismiss the challenge as laughable, hope no one feels like challenging the narrative, and keep whistling past the graveyard.
Because Obama doesn’t care. He’ll just BS another way around it, and do it anyways.
Public pressure on the Supreme Court reportedly swayed John Roberts’ decision in the mandate case – a situation where people close to Roberts had expected him to rule in conservatives’ favor up until the last minute.
I’ve become more and more suspicious that Barack Obama’s people essentially blackmailed CJ Roberts by threatening to expose certain “irregularities” in the adoption of his children (and with the cooperation of the media, turn it into a Major Crisis). If that’s what happened, two predictions follow:
* He’ll vote the way the administration wants him to on the Obamacare subsidy case, too.
* After the 2016 election, the administration will “burn” him on it anyway, just because they can. They’re that kind of people.
Yeah, just like Roberts voted the way Obama wanted him to on recess appointments, preclearance, and Hobby Lobby.