Megan McArdle lays out the problem for the administration with regard to Halbig v. Burrell*:
When you read through the ruling, it’s easy to see the many ways in which the law’s architects brought this on themselves. The law was highly complex, badly drafted and highly controversial. When a Republican won a special election for the Senate in Massachusetts (!), the Democrats had to push it through on a straight party-line vote with some adroit parliamentary maneuvering — which gave them a health-care law, but one that was badly put together and couldn’t be substantially amended. The gaping holes were patched with administrative fixes, like an Internal Revenue Service ruling that held federally established exchanges to be equivalent to an exchange established by the state. But the vast scale of the law meant that the administrative gymnastics that held it together might not be sustainable.
Legislate in haste, repent at leisure. Not that this administration ever repents anything, of course. They’re not exactly enamoured of ever admitting that Barack Obama was wrong about anything, although when it comes to Obamacare it’s sometimes difficult to figure out what the administration was right about. Even their justification for the individual mandate (Commerce Clause) got shot down, 5-4**…
Via Instapundit.
Moe Lane
*Short version: the plaintiff contended that the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) explicitly prohibited the federal government from offering subsidies to any Obamacare policy on the federal exchanges. A panel of judges from the US Court of Appeals agreed, 2-1: the administration has asked that the entire Court of Appeals rule on the decision, which will probably reverse that (Obama appointees). Couple that with another, contradictory ruling elsewhere and you can pretty much assume that the Supreme Court is going to rule on this one eventually.
**I know people hate the Obamacare tax rationalization, but there’s something to be said for at least putting some curb on the federal government’s tendency to use the Commerce Clause as a policy skeleton key.
Hey, remember when I pointed out a Newsmax article in your sidebar that had Dick Morris talking about this same case and you dismissed it out of hand because of Dick Morris?
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Good times.
Ouch. That smarts. A little.
I stand by the general principle. 🙂
Just be careful whose foot you put in your mouth!
What you did there? I sees it.
John Roberts to the rescue!
nth look at three-dimensional chess?
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Seriously, while the Roberts-haters have a number of valid points, they ignore that the court is – plainly – just as much of a political organ of government as the executive.
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IMO, Roberts was right to let this abomination be implemented and crash down under its’ own poorly-cantilevered weight rather than making the Supremes the target of a Lefty hate-on.
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Mew