Beet
Atlas Star
Posts: 29,007
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« on: July 22, 2014, 11:43:42 AM » |
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Absurd. A clear reading of the entire text of the law clearly indicates that sufficient subsidies were intended to be included for those below a certain income threshold so they can afford insurance, or else none of the rest would make sense. There is plenty of evidence for that in the 2009 and 2010, and earlier proposals for the individual mandate going back to the 1990s, as well as for the fiscal requirements of the law. Legal precedent requires the courts to make a determination on the basis of legislative intent and all permissible interpretations thereof, as well as to avoid absurd results. Striking down the subsidies would certainly make the rest of it absurd, as not enough people would sign up to support the new regulations. The court claims it can do this because absurd results were the effect in certain U.S. territories and an area of the law dealing with nursing homes, but those were marginal areas of the law where the evidence of Congressional intent was far more scant. The court claims that evidence of Congressional intent is scant in this case too, but that is because it is looking only for explicit claims; there are few explicit claims because the assumption that subsidies would be available for all exchanges was so deeply embedded and such an obvious assumption that it was not thought worth mentioning. The text of the law certainly supports this assumption, IMO.
The court is attempting to strike down the will of Congress and statutory authority in favor of rule by un-elected judges.
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