In the latest decision by the U.S. Supreme Court affecting the fate of Obamacare, Justice Antonin Scaliacriticized Chief Justice John Roberts for his key vote that saved Obamacare by allowing the federal government to provide health care subsidies for residents in the 34 states that refused to set up their own health care exchanges.
According to Politico reporter Josh Gerstein, Roberts simply laughed during parts of Scalia’s diss
In the latest decision by the U.S. Supreme Court affecting the fate of Obamacare, Justice Antonin Scaliacriticized Chief Justice John Roberts for his key vote that saved Obamacare by allowing the federal government to provide health care subsidies for residents in the 34 states that refused to set up their own health care exchanges.
According to Politico reporter Josh Gerstein, Roberts simply laughed during parts of Scalia’s diss
Scalia’s main argument was that the federal government did not have the authority to give subsidies to the states when, according to the wording of the Affordable Care Act, health care exchanges must be “established by the State” in order to receive tax credits.
“Words no longer have meaning if an exchange that is not established by a state is ‘established by the State,’” said Scalia. “It is hard to come up with a clearer way to limit tax credits to state exchanges than to use the words ‘established by the State.’”
Scalia called the logic behind the court’s majority ruling as “interpretive jiggery-pokery” and accused Roberts, as well as the justices who agreed with him, of ignoring the law’s errors to save Obamacare.
“Normal rules of interpretation seem always to yield to the overriding principle of the present Court: The Affordable Care Act must be saved,” Scalia noted.
Furthermore, Scalia accused Roberts of rewriting the law twice in 2012 and again in this latest ruling simply to protect Obamacare from legal destruction.
“We should start calling this law SCOTUScare,” Scalia fumed in his dissent, referring to the many times Roberts has intervened to save the Affordable Care Act.
Scalia concluded that the “discouraging truth (is) that the Supreme Court of the United States favors some laws over others, and is prepared to do whatever it takes to uphold and assist its favorites.”
Roberts defense was that, although the law’s language supported Scalia’s opinion, he didn’t agree with Scalia because Congress could not have intended the law to be read the way it was written or Obamacare would be essentially unworkable (H/T Business Insider).
In other words, Roberts ruled by second-guessing what Congress meant to do with a law that — if you’ll recall then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s comment at the time — lawmakers didn’t even know the details of before they passed it.
There is an old English expression that refers to application of the law that is contrary to common-sense: “The law is an ass.”
The law wasn’t the only ass revealed by this latest Supreme Court ruling on Obamacare.
http://conservativetribune.com/justice-scalia-goes-nuclear/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=ConservativeTribune&utm_content=2015-06-26
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