Supreme Court says it will hear Texas v. Azar in its next term, solidifying the ACA as a major 2020 campaign issue and setting up a third major ruling on the law before the justices
— Mary Ellen McIntire (@MelMcIntire) March 2, 2020
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germy
And Kavanaugh will have his revenge!
the Conster
I’m on Nancy Pelosi’s social media team, and get to listen in on conference calls. This was one of the featured topics on the last call – that the Speaker and Dem leadership want SCOTUS to rule before the election, so that everyone – insured and insurers – know what the healthcare landscape is before the election, but if they delay the ruling until after the election, then the fix is in.
PenAndKey
Their tactic is transparently “re-litigate the law until we find an excuse to throw it out”. They’re not even pretending that their goal is repeal and replace at this point. And all while claiming they’re trying to defend pre-existing conditions patients and people facing lifetime caps because they know it’s electoral suicide. And yet here we are.
Marcopolo
Yeah, but when does the decision come down? Before or after the election? That case from TX which the SC could be hearing right now and which would have lead to a decision later this year before the election was put on hold, I assume by the R leaning members of the court who were counseled that repealing the ACA just before the election might cause problems for Trump’s re-election.
David Anderson
@Marcopolo: Argument would be in either October or November. Decision would be Spring 2021
David Anderson
@germy: Assuming no changes to the composition of the court, the likely ruling is 5:4 for the ACA with perhaps a slight cut that the individual mandate is now unconstitutional BUT it is 100% severable so half a page of the ACA is tossed at most.
Chris Johnson
@the Conster: Well THAT’s interesting. Please continue to share anything you feel you can. Right now I’m watching Pelosi closely for signs of what’s going on. Never knew you were that kind of insider.
Eolirin
@David Anderson: Let’s hope Ginsburg remains in good health…
Marcopolo
@David Anderson:That’s what I thought. The R appointees on the SC are playing politics with cases that might actually show that Republicans want to get rid of the ACA prior to the election.
Anya
@David Anderson: Are we sure Roberts will stick with his decision? I am never sure with these conservative SCOTUS.
Omnes Omnibus
@Marcopolo: Why?
the Conster
@Chris Johnson:
Yes, it’s been an interesting experience to listen in while she gets various activist groups to report directly to her about what they’re seeing and doing on the ground while no one is paying attention. She’s in complete command of the agenda, and the legislative initiatives they’re pushing. The last call was about impeachment and Iran – having “two eyes on the two I’s” as she said. This subject came up as a result of the Texas circuit court decision, and she mentioned this strategy of getting SCOTUS to fast track a review. IIRC, she said it’s a sophisticated strategy above her pay grade to explain, but, it’s coming out of a concerted, coordinated effort of House Counsel and state AGs.
As Pelosi said, this next election, like the 2018 blue wave, is going to be another health care election and Dems can’t fuck this up by screaming about repealing and replacing Obamacare like the GOPers do.
Marcopolo
@Omnes Omnibus: The SC had already passed once on taking up the Texas case. If they had agreed to put it on the docket then, the chances for a decision prior to the election would have been higher. They also have had the option to do an expedited hearing on the case which they have not done.
Honestly, though, we have to assume that Chief Justice Roberts & the other R SC appointees do not live in a vacuum, that they are in regular contact with Republican party strategists–Mitch McConnell anyone?), and that they have been lobbied to keep the ACA out of the headlines until after Nov. 2020 as a decision before then would have been bad for Trump as well as their Senate & House candidates.
the Conster
Related:
These are the Dem AGs in court fighting to preserve your healthcare.
https://twitter.com/DemocraticAGs/status/1232477251096072192
Omnes Omnibus
@Marcopolo: Oddly enough, I understand the mechanisms by which the Court can choose when to take up a case. I was asking why Republicans would want a decision overturning the ACA prior to the election.
ETA: Or did I misread your comment?
Marcopolo
@Omnes Omnibus:Oh, if you thought I was saying that either my writing was not clear or you misread me. I agree there is no way that R’s wanted a decision on the ACA prior to the election. It’s an awkward sentence. Probably should have moved “prior to the election” to right after show:
Chris Johnson
@the Conster: I’ll buy that. All the more as people watch coronavirus approach, while being unable to do anything about it for lack of money.
I do hope ‘health care election’ doesn’t become ‘everybody loves their health insurance’ but I suspect she’s way smarter than that. Leave that shit to the Republicans, and get in Democrats who can build on what we painfully acquired.
Mnemosyne
Since I do not trust John Roberts in any way, I’m assuming this will be used as a fun new way to kneecap an incoming Democratic president by blowing up ACA only a few months after they take office.
debbie
@the Conster:
Then the smart thing to do is assume they will kill it and run on that. Along with Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare.
debbie
@the Conster:
Has she stopped Trump-related hearings? It’s seemed awfully quiet lately.
Barbara
@Mnemosyne: No, I would say the opposite. If I had to speculate, it’s that Roberts may feel quite annoyed at the Texas judge who decided to use an incredibly novel theory to obliterate a law that he had already upheld. I won’t go into the ins and outs of it, but Congress has had many chances to repeal the ACA, and instead has made legislative changes. The lower court is basically ruling that Congress “accidentally” or “unintentionally” repealed the whole thing after it had repealed only a small part of it. It’s a completely nutso ruling. If Roberts goes for it and a Democrat is in office, look for overwhelming pressure to enact M4A, because it would not just upend the exchange coverage, but Medicaid expansion. Just in time for one of the most severe threats to public health that we have seen in our lifetimes (vying with HIV for potential impact on health, but probably much worse in terms of economic impact).
guachi
I’m not a fan of M4A but if the ACA is blown up then M4A is the only way I can see to avoid it being destroyed again. Unless the Republicans want to take down Medicare, too.
hitchhiker
I remember the day trump had the entire Republican house conference over to yuk it up in the sunshine, celebrating their great victory of repealing Obamacare. The photographs of the party leadership grinning with trump on that day have always seemed like campaign ad gold to me.
I’m in geezer territory now, but I was a suburban mom. A soccer mom. I drove a minivan and taught school and organized carpools, the whole 9 yards. The district was red for all that time, with moderate, quiet Republicans voting nevertheless as told by their leaders.
It flipped in 2018, and it’s one of their targets now. The new generation of moms are, if anything, MORE tuned in to questions of paying for healthcare. Unlike us back in the day, they’re stuck in the gig economy with monthly student loan payments. They need the ACA to function.
We have a ton of evidence that the Republicans are willing to risk it — that they’re truly poking sticks into it for the fun of it instead of trying to make sure people aren’t in danger of going bankrupt over a bad diagnosis.
We have all of them on camera promising to get rid of the ACA, we have them celebrating when they were halfway there, and now we have their court case before the SCOTUS, poised like a snake to truly fuck things up. It’s horrifying. If Pelosi et al can’t message around that set of facts, there really is no hope.
burnspbesq
@the Conster:
Several of those folks would make excellent successors to Barr. I especially like Maura Healy from MA.
catclub
Yeah, there was a Slate column on just this: GOP judges slow-walking anything that might hurt Trump or GOP, and expediting all the judgements that help him – or keep his IRS records out of the public hands.
randy khan
I totally read this as Roberts trying to get it decided after the election so that it isn’t an election issue. Of course, if the Dems aren’t stupid about it (and I would say the likelihood they’re going to be stupid about is close to zero), it will be an election issue anyway. After all, the Trump Administration has bought into the underlying theory of the case and is on the side of the Republican Attorneys General who brought it.
FWIW, a general rule on the Supreme Court taking cases is that they don’t take cases to affirm the court below, but to reverse. It’s only a rule of thumb, though, and so I wouldn’t assume anything about what Roberts – who clearly is the swing vote – will do.
the Conster
@Chris Johnson:
No one knows more about the landscape of the politics of health care than the Speaker. It’s what got her the majority. I don’t know who remembers what, but shortly before the mid terms I started noticing how many GOPers were lying about pre-existing condition coverage, after McCain had saved the ACA and its pre-existing coverage provision from going down in flames. It was brazen lies too, including Trump who of course lied about it. People in the districts noticed the lies too, because they were showing up at the candidates town halls demanding answers. She had told all the candidates to hammer health care, they did, and they won.
She wants that to happen again. It’s the one issue that breaks through the lies.
catclub
and unlike when they grant Trump expedited hearings, they don’t do it for Democrats. They are playing keep away for Trump and the GOP.
Jeffro
ACA:
OT:
Bill Arnold
@Mnemosyne:
Directly threatening the lives of large numbers of people is seldom a good idea. Second amendment, no insurance premiums means money unspent, very large numbers of aggrieved people, etc. (I am noting this as an advocate of non-violent solutions.)
Citizen Alan
@guachi:
Narrator: The Republicans want to take down Medicare too.
catclub
@Citizen Alan: They want to take it down but also not leave their fingerprints all over the murder weapon. … tricky.
PenAndKey
@Bill Arnold: I definitely agree with @Mnemosyne. I don’t trust Roberts, at all. And you’re right, this is a direct threat to people’s lives. Between my parents and my son being threatened with the return of pre-existing conditions clauses and lifetime caps I take this personally, and the GOP’s stance on this topic alone has split my extended family in half and made half of us nearly rabidly anti-GOP. The other half? They’re Trump die-hards who get pissed when I call them out for their IGMFY attitude and point out that the people they vote for are a threat to their own family. The ACA isn’t a campaign slogan; it’s a powder keg.
Robert’s knows all this. The GOP should know this too, but here we are.
Duane
@debbie: Absolutely right. Beat Republicans over the head with “taking your healthcare away” like it was as good as done. It’s what Republicans are trying to do so make them own it.
Martin
Hearing this against the backdrop of Covid will be interesting.
Epidemiologist colleague now thinks there are multiple thousands of cases in the US after the latest count. Now suspects other nations will place a travel ban from the US due to widespread refusal to test.
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: Decision will be after the election, but arguments likely before.
debbie
@Duane:
We should make M4A our own nuclear option. Take away the ACA and you’ll get M4A. Period.
Richard Guhl
My hunch is that John Roberts is sick of this nonsense and wants to be done with it. He has already affirmed the ACA twice, and there’s no reason to think that he’ll suddenly change his mind. If he did, he’d get no credit from the right and a furious reaction of Democrats on the left.
I foresee a 5-4 vote upholding the law.
Roberts cannot be unmindful of the possibility that, should the Democrats take control of Congress, they wouldn’t hesitate to strip the Supreme Court of its power of review in certain classes of cases as is allowed in Article 3, Section 2, paragraph 2.
He may push the envelope, but he has to know the danger of going too far.
Martin
Regarding voting tomorrow, CA and other states with massive early voting may not be affected, but with Pete out, and to a lesser degree Steyer, everyone just got a little boost to their chances of hitting the 15% threshold. Bernie isn’t consolidating the Dem base so much that there were too many non-Bernie candidates preventing many of them from hitting 15%. That got a little better.
There’s got to be massive pressure on Amy to drop. I don’t see Super Tuesday helping her much either. I say the same for Warren based on results, but she’s at least got money to spend. We’ll see if it helps.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: Thank you, great legal scholar.
James E Powell
Every time the supreme court is in the news, I want to find a Nader voter and a Stein voter and smash their heads together, like Moe Howard.
What’s it going to take to convince non-right wingers that the supreme court is more important than things like speeches to Goldman Sachs or a vote in favor of a bad criminal justice bill or some other “disqualifying” act?
Martin
@debbie: If the US keeps fucking up it’s Covid response, then M4A gets closer to reality.
Look at the arguments against M4A. It isn’t really that people dislike it. It’s that they dislike the process of dismantling the current system. That’s the key impediment. Lacking a sustained bombing campaign to remove the existing health care apparatus, Covid may do much of that for us. Either the feds are going to have to bail out the industry enough to get people to ask why we should suffer through this intolerable mix of both high costs plus taxpayer bailouts, or they won’t be bailed out and they’ll start failing under a set of costs that aren’t baked into premiums, particularly if the cost of testing/vaccines aren’t subsidized.
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: I can read a website:
While the court can certainly deviate from this, I don’t see any possibility the case will be heard in Oct and a ruling handed down prior to the election. This isn’t an urgent matter like Bush v Gore.
James E Powell
@debbie:
When Republicans argue that M4A ,or anything like it, will give free health care to blacks and immigrants, and it is certain that they will scream that message, the majority of white people will oppose it.
When the bankers crashed the economy, they blamed black people, then elected right wingers who promised to be cruel to poor people and to impose austerity on everyone else. What makes anyone think they won’t respond the same way to a pandemic? Remember how people reacted to AIDS?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Martin: People don’t want to give up what they know to instead go to the DMV to see a doctor*.
*This is how Republicans will paint any single payer proposal.
the Conster
@debbie:
That makes no sense with this court. SCOTUS will get rid of Medicare before they’ll pass Medicare for All.
Martin
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Right, which is why the failure of the existing system, in some form, is likely a necessary precursor. Say what you will about the DMV, they don’t go bankrupt and leave you without.
the Conster
@James E Powell:
I don’t understand how anyone can still look at the history of progress in this country and think that white people are going to do the right thing? Sure, they love their own government programs, but as soon as they see anyone brown or black enjoying the same benefit they do, they vote against big government and for GOP. They don’t want their hard earned tax dollars going to *those lazy people*. No one wants to hand over 1/6 of the US economy to government.
This is the best article I’ve ever read about this.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisladd/2017/03/13/unspeakable-realities-block-universal-health-coverage-in-the-us/#c82d78a186a6
Kent
Democrats should be running every damn campaign on the premise that Republicans are taking away their health care and leaving them WORSE off than they were before the ACA. Every damn ad should be talking about that
If the GOP doesn’t like it they can accelerate their damn SCOTUS ruling and affirm the ACA once and for all BEFORE the election. The fact that they aren’t doing that give away the game.
Ruckus
@Marcopolo:
Do you have any doubt that they want to get rid of it? And will do it in a way to best, at least, not hurt their chances of reelection? When in the last 3 or more decades have republicans not done whatever they can to screw the most people at the bettering of the fewest?
Ohio Mom
On a personal note, it is with relief that I note that I entered the promised land of Medicare coverage today.
I really do feel that I have reached a special place where I will always have at least some coverage (yes, I know the Republicans will always have their knives out for Medicare but I feel there is safety in the large number of faithful voters in my new cohort).
On the topic of the post, the older I get, the deeper my appreciation for how f*cked up this nation I live in is.
Ruckus
@Richard Guhl:
I think the possibility that you are correct is reasonable, given the history there. Republicans have been going completely freaking crazy the last few years because they got what they wanted in a president, someone to dismantle the most helpful parts of the federal government, by design or by incompetence. They’ve got nothing else so they chose incompetence to get the job done. I doubt seriously that they see this as a death march, to anyone but their “enemies.” They have proven not to be all that bright, just highly delusional. And it’s not money, they have lots of money, and the people giving it, really, really want what they are paying for.
Ohio Mom
The Conster @48: That IS a good article. I think I will bookmark it.
Funny that it ran in Forbes, and amusing to think of the reactions of the typical Forbes readers when it was first published. There must have been an outbreak of cognitive dissonance across the country that week.
Kelly
@Ohio Mom:
@the Conster:
Not sure if you’ll find that article on his new site but here’ where Chris Ladd posts now
https://www.politicalorphans.com/
https://twitter.com/chrisaladd
the Conster
@Ohio Mom:
Written by a white guy and former Republican. It’s as honest as it gets. I went to buy “Dying of Whiteness” last weekend but it’s $35 and I just couldn’t bring myself to spend that much to depress myself further so I got a pedi instead. :-)
Humdog
@Ohio Mom: Happy Birthday
the Conster
@Kelly:
Yes, I read him. He’s right on. Here’s his take on Sanders being run by Russia – much longer than Trump has been, btw.
https://www.politicalorphans.com/sanders-is-the-kremlins-second-favorite-candidate/
zhena gogolia
@the Conster:
I loved this comment on that article:
I am plunging back into panicked despair about BS.
ETA: I would disagree with the author’s contention that it was very difficult for an American to visit the Soviet Union in 1988.
trollhattan
@Eolirin:
I want her within ten paces of a sink at all times. French-milled soap? Yours for the asking, Justice.
Ohio Mom
Hum dog @56: Thanks! Though my birthday isn’t for two more weeks. One of her many bits of Medicare trivia I learned in the past few months is that it starts on the first day of your birthday month.
pamelabrown53
@Ohio Mom:
Congrats! Love being on Medicare such an emotional and financial relief after years of self-insured$$$. Did you have difficulty selecting a gap or supplement policy? So much to choose from!
different-church-lady
We’re all going to die, and nobody’s going to have any health insurance.
Proove me wrong.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@zhena gogolia:
I agree, Cuba was a bit more difficult, you’d have to go though Mexico and not getting your passport stamped.
Martin
@zhena gogolia: My grandmother visited 3 times. She was just a tourist. Harder than other places, but not objectively hard.
Ohio Mom
Pamelabrown53 @61: The shock of just how confusing choosing among Medicare plans is, well it was a shock. As was finding out how much it all costs. Still, it’s forever, even with my various pre-existing conditions.
I just wonder how addled really oldsters manage to navigate the system.
schrodingers_cat
Amy Klobuchar is suspending her campaign and endorsing Joe Biden
jeffreyw
?BillinGlendaleCA
@schrodingers_cat: Once Pete was gone…
Baud
@schrodingers_cat: Wow. I hope that doesn’t mean Bernie is going to win Minnesota.
Orange Is The New White
@James E Powell: Nothing, man. You’re just playing the corporation’s game by voting for the corporate party.
In seriousness, this makes me weep. I’ve been hearing this shit from the left since I was old enough to know what politics was. This is, for whatever reason, a problem that the Right just does not have.
Am re-reading Shirer’s “Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” and one of the critical factors in Hitler’s coming to power was that, even though he only had, at his peak, 37% of the vote and could have been easily stopped at that point, the other 63% of Germans absolutely refused to work together, all convinced that they and they alone were the right people to be in charge of Germany and everyone else was just as bad as Hitler. Sound familiar?
Shirer goes so far as to term it the true great moral failing of the German people. Because it made everything else that Hitler said he would do possible.
Ohio Mom
Zhena @58: Biden’s good result in SC and Buttigieg dropping out have made combined to make me a little less anxious about BS. Don’t know if this lovely calm will last but I am enjoying it for now.
I am sad that Warren isn’t doing better but as long as she stays in, I figure she has to be pulling voters from Bernie. And her attacks on Bloomberg are very enjoyable.
ETA: Klobuchar dropping out just makes this all realer.
Chyron HR
@zhena gogolia:
Indeed, perhaps someone ushered into the presidency by a cult of personality can use the dictatorial powers of the office to (checks notes) oppose fascism.
Immanentize
On the Supreme Court and the ACA — It won’t be decided before the election, but unless something really weird happens, it will certainly be argued in early October. Much national presidential race focus will turn to that argument.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: The crucial difference from the last time is that it is primary not a caucus this year. BS doesn’t do as well in primaries as he does in caucus states.
Baud
@Immanentize:
Yep, and the Trump administration will have to tell the Supreme Court to gut the whole thing before the election.
Immanentize
@Baud: Like I said this morning, Klobuchar just couldn’t let Buttigieg last longer in the race. I thought she’ld tough it out til tomorrow. This stirs the pot for sure.
Immanentize
@Baud: unless something really funky happens….
zhena gogolia
@Chyron HR:
the logic is unassailable!
Immanentize
Jes sayin’
Warren is the only woman left in the primary.*
* Not willing to count T.G.
frosty
@Ohio Mom: It took me at least a month to figure out that a PA MedAdvantage plan wouldn’t cover my MD doctors. No one would confirm that the out of network benefits would apply. So we went with Medigap, which was probably best anyway considering how much traveling we do.
Long story short: yes it’s complicated and not free.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Immanentize: Funkytown!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@frosty:
That’s not what the guy with the bird said.
Immanentize
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I must admit, I love that song. Thanks!
Missouri Buckeye
@Jeffro: If was so sickening during the 2018 campaign to watch Hawley lie through his teeth saying “I will never take away your healthcare” while as MO AG he was signed onto the lawsuit to do just that.
debbie
@Immanentize:
Nina Totenberg insists you can predict the outcome by listening to the arguments.
Mai naem mobile
@Ohio Mom: if you’re going the supplement route remember you’re stuck with the supplement you pick initially. After that you have to go through underwriting.I had no idea about that when I did the leg work for my moms supplement and it’s been okay but a coworker who went on Medicare and went the supplement route told me that. My mom went on Medicare pre-Part D so I don’t know if things have changed but the AARP plans didn’t impress me. I’ve forgotten the exact numbers but the drug coverage covered something like $1000 max but cost $800.