Thanks to another tortured interpretation of the U.S. Constitution by the Supreme Court, we’re going to be stuck with Obamacare for at least the next year and a half. This is bad news for most Americans — especially those of us who pay the taxes to provide all those subsidies.
Last Thursday, the Supreme Court finally rendered its verdict in King vs. Burwell, the lawsuit challenging the Obama administration’s decision to grant subsidies to almost everyone getting their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, not just those who signed up through state exchanges.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the decision for the 6-3 majority. In it he said:
In a democracy, the power to make the law rests with those chosen by the people. Our role is more confined. That is easier in some cases than in others. But in every case, we must respect the role of the Legislature and take care not to undo what it has done.
Of course, this country is not a democracy, something our Founding Fathers feared and despised. It’s a republic. Or at least that’s what the Constitution established.
And while the Constitution does require that “the power to make the law” rests in Congress (“those chosen by the people”), it’s a very unfortunate truth that for more than 50 years, the U.S. Supreme Court has usurped this power and rendered decisions that became known as “the law of the land.” The Court did this again on Friday, when it ruled in favor of gay marriage. So much for “respect[ing] the role of the Legislature.”
In a scathing dissent to the Obamacare ruling, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote:
The Court holds that when the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act says “Exchange established by the State” it means “Exchange established by the State or the Federal Government.” That is of course quite absurd….
Words no longer have meaning if an Exchange that is notestablished by a State is “established by the State.”
Scalia pointed out that this isn’t the first time the Supreme Court has twisted the clear meaning of words in order to protect the Affordable Care Act. It did the same thing in an earlier ruling (also written by the chief justice) that declared the mandate requiring every person to get health insurance or pay a penalty was constitutional because — guess what? — it wasn’t actually a mandate, it was a tax.
The court said this even though President Obama and other supporters of the legislation had said repeatedly that the mandate was emphatically not a tax. Of course, Obama also said repeatedly that if you liked the health insurance you had, you could keep it. Once the bill became law, millions of Americans were soon notified by that their insurance companies were canceling their coverage, precisely because it did not meet the standards of Obamacare.
Thanks to what he described as “interpretive jiggery-pokery,” Scalia said we should probably stop calling this monstrosity Obamacare and start calling it “SCOTUScare.”
Of the 9 million people who have thus far signed up for Obamacare, some 87 percent receive taxpayer subsidies. The average participant pays $69 per month for his or her health insurance — and receives a subsidy of $276. No wonder a huge majority say they are satisfied with what they are getting. You and I are paying 80 percent of their bill!
We’re told that another 12 million Americans are eligible for Obamacare but have yet to sign up for coverage. If you think the program is expensive now, just wait until there are 20 million people receiving those federal subsidies, instead of the 8 million who are getting them today.
Meanwhile, those of us with private health insurance can expect to see our premiums skyrocket. Estimates are that they could climb by an average of 30 percent by the end of next year. If this happens, millions more will turn to the federal government for subsidized coverage — just as the left intended.
Yes, the Supreme Court has just pushed this country a lot further down the road to socialized medicine. And we have that phony conservative, Chief Justice John Roberts, to thank for it.
Until next time, keep some powder dry.
Chip Wood was the first news editor of The Review of the News and also wrote for American Opinion, our two predecessor publications. He is now the geopolitical editor of Personal Liberty Digest. This article first appeared on PersonalLiberty.com and has been reprinted with permission.
