If the Supreme Court were to decide not to allow retroactive legislating and uphold Obamacare as written, terrible things would happen to America. We might, for instance, find out what health insurance in fabricated, state-run “marketplaces” actually costs.
The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that the 37 states that have declined to set up exchanges would see an average spike of 287 percent should the King v. Burwell decision not go the Obama administration’s way. It would be 650 percent in Mississippi — an amount that only proves that exchanges have not made insurance markets more competitive or more affordable as promised. Actually, the cost of insurance in federally run exchanges is already 287 percent higher. The difference is picked up by taxpayers.
And you know who’s to blame for that, right?
Here is Vox: “What a Supreme Court ruling against Obamacare would look like, in 3 maps.”
Here is The Washington Post: “Map: Health-care premiums could spike as much as 650 percent if this Obamacare challenge succeeds.”
Now, technically, King v. Burwell isn’t a “challenge” to Obamacare. It’s a challenge to uphold Obamacare rather than allow the administration to implement the law in any manner it sees fit. There are compelling arguments on both sides, but the case is well within the purview of the U.S. Supreme Court. The coverage of the debate, though, has already been irrevocably distorted.
In the past few years, any SCOTUS decision that potentially disrupts liberal policy aims has been depicted as an unprecedented and extraordinary partisan overreach that threatens civic order and the norms of democracy. If the president is willing to berate SCOTUS for protecting the First Amendment, you can imagine what we’re in for should something unpleasant happen to the signature achievement of the new progressive era.
So SCOTUS can issue pro-same-sex marriage opinions that “challenge” over 200 years of American law and upend a traditional institution, but ending a concocted subsidy that’s only been around for a few years would, according to White House press secretary Josh Earnest, create bedlam:
“We continue to be very confident in the legal case we have to make. What’s also true is that if the Supreme Court were to throw the health care system in this country into utter chaos, there would be no easy solution for solving that problem, because it would likely require an act of Congress in order to address that situation.”
