Waiting on the Supremes
I have always assumed that it was very likely the conservative majority on the Supreme Court would take the easy way out and rule against the federal exchange subsidies by simply saying that the law is unclear so they are ruling for the plaintiffs but it’s no biggie because the congress will “fix it.” Those of us who don’t live in Bizarroworld know this is ridiculous, but it’s entirely possible that the conservative justices will pretend naivete and just say all the congress has to do it a little tweak and all will be ok, no harm no foul. And except for the dozens of votes to scale back or repeal Obamacare, that might even make sense. And, as Greg Sargent points out here, the fact that the Republicans have failed to produce their promised alternative for 50 months now can’t possibly mean that they have no flipping idea how to “fix” it without making millions of people lose their health insurance.
On the other hand, many people think that John Roberts has a little more regard for the reputation of the court that to do something so patently absurd, which this interesting video from a few months back would seem to validate. He seems to be very concerned that the public not see the court as partisan and protests that it’s just plain wrong. (I’m sorry to inform him that that ship sailed with Bush vs Gore — and Roberts was among those GOP lawyers who descended on Florida to )
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