Matt Vespa | @mvespa1 Posted: Jul 10, 2019 12:25 PM
It’s a double-edged sword. Yes,
socialized medicine is bad. Yes, Obamacare lurches us a step closer towards
that progressive policy achievement. But the GOP has failed to sell their plan
on health care to voters in a way that would prevent them from being blown up
at the ballot box. It’s never easy campaigning on a platform that is viewed as
taking away people’s stuff. The last chance the GOP had to have a clean repeal
of Obamacare without political fallout was in 2012. We needed to win that
election. Mitt Romney didn’t cut it. So, as the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals
hears oral arguments about the constitutionality of Obamacare, there are
rumblings that the law could be struck down—all of it. Oh, yes, another liberal
meltdown could be on the horizon. That seems to be happening a lot lately. At
the same time, the fallout from the decision could send the GOP scrambling.
Mitch McConnell is already saying if the law is struck down, the Senate would
restore protections for pre-existing conditions (via The Hill):
This
may well be the most important story of the week, and it's barely being
covered. A ridiculous lawsuit, but one backed by the Trump administration,
could kill health insurance for 20 million Americans https://www.huffpost.com/entry/anti-obamacare-lawsuit-health-care_n_5b27c782e4b0f9178a9f8029?ix= …
When
he was a child, Mitch McConnell suffered from polio. He has lifelong disability
which is no laughing matter and I feel sorry for him. Yet in spite of his life
experiences, he calls himself the “grim reaper” and has been doing everything
he can to repeal Obamacare. Shameful.
I
wrote about how two Republican federal judges spent their afternoon
contemplating one of the greatest acts of mass killing to occur on American
soil since the Civil War.https://thinkprogress.org/republican-judges-seem-determined-to-strike-down-obamacare-ad1f584ee8cb/ …
And
you're STILL trying to take away our health care. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/09/health/obamacare-appeals-court.html …
A federal appeals court on Tuesday
hinted that it would strike down ObamaCare’s individual mandate as
unconstitutional, but the three-judge panel was not as clear about whether they
would overturn the entire law.
Two Republican-appointed judges on the 5th Circuit Court of
Appeals grilled attorneys representing Democratic attorneys general about
whether Congress intended to invalidate the entire law when lawmakers
eliminated the penalty for the individual mandate.
The judges questioned whether ObamaCare would be able to
stand on its own if the mandate were declared unconstitutional. The outcome of
the lawsuit puts at risk health care for 20 million Americans who are covered
by ObamaCare.
Legal experts on both sides of the aisle said the
challengers’ legal arguments are weak and the lawsuit is unlikely to ultimately
succeed, but the lines of questioning from the judges puts that analysis in
doubt.
The issue is whether the mandate can be separated from the
rest of the law, which extends far beyond just health insurance.
[…]
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday
that he supports protecting people with pre-existing conditions.
“There’s nobody in the Senate not in favor of covering
pre-existing conditions. Nobody,” McConnell said.
If the law was overturned, McConnell said the Senate would
act quickly on a bipartisan basis to restore the law’s protections for
pre-existing conditions.
It
could also place Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) in a bind since she voted to get rid
of the individual mandate in 2017, which is the basis for the legal challenge.
This will definitely come up during her re-election, in which she could find
herself fighting for her political life. She did clinch 68 percent of the vote
in 2014, but the Kavanaugh fight, this health care issue, and Maine’s very,
very independent electorate could shake things up. We cannot afford to lose
her. She may not be the most conservative of Republicans, but obviously, she’s
better than any Democrat.
New @SenatorCollins statement
says Trump DOJ is shirking its duty to defend Obamacare + touts her health
record.
What email doesn’t mention: Collins voted in Dec 2017 to eliminate ACA individual mandate penalty, which set up legal argument for lawsuit to strike down Obamacare.
What email doesn’t mention: Collins voted in Dec 2017 to eliminate ACA individual mandate penalty, which set up legal argument for lawsuit to strike down Obamacare.
Put differently, all five justices who
voted to uphold Obamacare in 2012 are still on the Supreme Court. https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/1148691895700377607 …
To put a finer point on this, @JoanBiskupic's book describes how
Roberts, even before he flipped on the indiv mandate, was reluctant to overturn
the entire ACA. So even if you think he might look at the zero-tax mandate
differently, severability is a serious hurdle.
And if this appeals court guts the
law, there will certainly be a legal challenge somewhere. It will probably be
brought before the Supreme Court again, where the five justices that saved it in 2011 remain
on the bench. I’ll let the legal writers, lawyers, and commentators duke it
out. For now, in the immediate, while symbolically this could be a win, the GOP
has failed to plan for the fallout for something like this and properly execute
an agenda of their own that doesn’t come off as trash with voters. In the
meantime, some progressives are likening this potential decision to strike it
down as “one of the greatest acts of mass killing to occur on American soil
since the Civil War.” Maybe the overreaction could give us some cover, but the
fact remains that a lot can go wrong and at the worst possible time when the
economy is booming and Trump’s approval is starting to hit record highs in
liberal polls.
How could lots of people die from repealing
Obamacare when there wasn’t some big drop in the death rate when it was
enacted?
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2019/07/10/we-could-have-another-liberal-meltdown-if-federal-appeals-court-shreds-obamacare-n2549798?utm_source=thdailypm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm&newsletterad=&bcid=f79acd4aa377004bb286c42e015f374d&recip=18919432
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