Fun with Scott Lemieux on Halbig
There is a crowd of pro-ObamaCare partisans who call the argument of the Halbig plaintiffs “Halbig trooferism.” These folks haughtily declaim that the Halbig argument is clearly the Stupidest Argument Evah!!1!! They act as if their tone of mockery will carry the day when logic and evidence cannot.
One of this crowd is Scott Lemieux of the blog Lawyers, Guns, and Money, and he and I had an amusing discussion last night and this morning on the Twitters concerning one of the central tenets of the lefty partisans’ position on this. Namely, they say that, despite the fact that there is no language in the ACA providing for tax credits for plans bought on federal exchanges, it simply has to be the case that tax credits are available on federally established exchanges, because of the “structure of the law.” What they mean by this is: Congress assumed everyone would get tax credits, and since they provided for a federal fallback, that shows that they must have assumed that the federal exchanges would provide tax credits.
The rejoinder by the Halbig plaintiffs is: sure, Congressional Democrats and Obama assumed that everyone would get tax credits — because they assumed that all the states would set up exchanges.
Scott Lemieux started the discussion by disputing that point:
@Patterico Risible nonsense. They *didn't* assume all states would set up exchanges — this why Congress established a federal backstop.
— Scott Lemieux (@LemieuxLGM) November 11, 2014
Since then, I have been whacking him over the head with proof that this is true, and his responses have been . . . amusing.
I provided a direct quote from the New York Times saying exactly that:
.@LemieuxLGM NY Times, 8/4/12: "Mr. Obama and lawmakers assumed that every state would set up its own exchange." http://t.co/SGrEcI8ciq
— Patterico (@Patterico) November 11, 2014
Lemieux complained that I had provided no direct quote from Obama or Congress. OK. So I provided a direct quote from Obama:
@LemieuxLGM "And then, by 2014, each state will set up what we’re calling a health insurance exchange.’’–Obama, 2010 http://t.co/p3TLvuh1Ai
— Patterico (@Patterico) November 11, 2014
And I provided a quote from the Congressional Research Service:
.@LemieuxLGM CRS, 4/10: Under PPACA, state-established 'American Health Benefit Exchanges' will have to be established in every state…"
— Patterico (@Patterico) November 11, 2014
And I provided an article from Politico (cache link here) showing that Congress had provided unlimited funding for the state establishment of exchanges, but literally not one dime for the federal establishment of exchanges — suggesting that, as Obama, the New York Times, and the Congressional Research Service said, everyone believed that the states would establish exchanges. (This conclusion is corroborated by the feds’ clear inattention to the issue of setting up federal exchanges. It couldn’t be more clear that they got caught flat-footed by the need to actually establish the federal fall-back.)
Now, none of this really matters. Conservatives will win in the Supreme Court because the text of the law is what matters, not what people had in their head.
But Lemieux’s reaction to this deluge of evidence — and the reaction of his commenters — can be observed in his post about it, here. I violated my usual rule and actually waded into the comments over there for a little while — mainly because I had the very quotes that he complained in the post I had not provided.
Go over there and watch in amusement as my logic and evidence are routinely discounted. Watch as Scott demands — demands! — that I provide a quote from Obama saying that the states would all set up exchanges . . . and then, when I do exactly that, Scott and everyone else say: “So what?”
It is an amusing spectacle of sophistry.
In any event, bookmark this post, so that in the future, when leftists say: “Nobody assumed that the states would all set up exchanges!” you will have this wealth of evidence to bludgeon them with.
UPDATE: The Senate Democratic Policy Committee said the same thing as Obama, the New York Times, the Congressional Research Service, and so forth:
@jadler1969 @Patterico @mfcannon Got it. Link seems stale, tho – I'll try to track down a live link. pic.twitter.com/hRPvvo0kJa
— Ken Kelly (@_KJKelly) November 11, 2014
UPDATE: DRJ provides the link to that Senate Democratic Policy Committee document, which states: “By 2014, each state will establish an Exchange to help individuals and small employers obtain coverage.” I have saved it here in case they memory hole it.
I do recommend looking at those comments. They are really quite something.
Patterico (9c670f) — 11/11/2014 @ 2:13 pmPatterico, you ignorant sl*t. It should be all that matters, but it isn’t.
steve (369bc6) — 11/11/2014 @ 2:26 pmstupid people like you are why they had to lie about the law: you’re too dumb to understand what’s good for you.
fortunately, you have your betters to take care of that…
😎
redc1c4 (34e91b) — 11/11/2014 @ 2:28 pmand they named the tool Lemieux…
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 11/11/2014 @ 2:30 pmWow, Lemieux actually is one of our betters. Never met one before.
Gazzer (cb9ee2) — 11/11/2014 @ 2:39 pmI am glad some of you have confidence that this is a true “slam dunk”.
Me? I’ve given up assuming anything will be justified by logic or common sense, except the Lord’s return.
I’m waiting until after I hear the SCOTUS sing, and hopefully breathe a sigh of relief.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 11/11/2014 @ 2:41 pmI am curious about one part of your logic which you did not address at LGM’s blog.
Why is legislative intent irrelevant with respect to the meaning of ACA but crucial to understanding the meaning of the 14th amendment vis a vis SSM?
Cheerful (8e12a4) — 11/11/2014 @ 2:44 pmSeems to be the way – if all else fails wave the hand and dismiss the evidence as irrelevant to your argument.
Sigh. You can’t win with people who argue that way, but you sure can make them look silly to rational people.
scrubone (c3104f) — 11/11/2014 @ 2:52 pmIt isn’t. The original understanding of the language is what matters. Not intent, in either case.
Patterico (9c670f) — 11/11/2014 @ 3:03 pmCheerful, failure to grasp the concept “this thing is not like the other” is what has led us to SSM in the first place. The concept, as well as other things grasped.
But Patterico has addressed the Fourteenth Amendment red herring before. The Fourteenth Amendment was drafted by the Congress. Then sent to the states for ratification. Did the states understand, when they ratified it, that the Civil War was fought so Ulysses S. Grant would have the right to marry Robert E. Lee?
nk (dbc370) — 11/11/2014 @ 3:04 pmhow is this a real bill, 2,500 pages that don’t address the most basic elements of a program, if you removed all the discretionary bits, you would have scarcely any bill,
narciso (ee1f88) — 11/11/2014 @ 3:05 pmThat blog is such a fever swamp of dishonest partisanship I determined it was a waste of time to visit years ago.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 11/11/2014 @ 3:13 pm“Yes” mean “no” mentality. We have always been at war with Oceania. No, we were never Oceania. We were always Eurasia. Now eat your recycled chocolate ration, citizen. It was increased from six ounces to four ounces just for you.
nk (dbc370) — 11/11/2014 @ 3:19 pmSurely a few “minor” typos are to be expected in such a long bill and once the errors were pointed out the Democrats could easily have attempted a fix through technical corrections rather than depending on litigation to solve the issue.
I wonder why they did not pursue that avenue.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 11/11/2014 @ 3:27 pmUnpopular laws have their consequences.
AZ Bob (34bb80) — 11/11/2014 @ 3:30 pmThe fix is up to the states that refused to set up state exchanges.
AZ Bob (34bb80) — 11/11/2014 @ 3:31 pmFirst they had to pass the bill to find out what was in it, so if they messed up the drafting, how the heck would anybody know?
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 11/11/2014 @ 3:34 pmI can hardly wait for a Republican-appointed Secretary of Health and Human Services.
luagha (e5bf64) — 11/11/2014 @ 3:34 pmThe true intent of the bill was re-election
we all know how that turned out
EPWJ (e66119) — 11/11/2014 @ 3:34 pmI could not help but note the comments (on that page) were quite vituperative, much like what passes for discussion elsewhere, and that “F*#@ you” passes for a witty rejoinder. I quit reading the Volokh Conspiracy for similar commentary. Some of the more colorful commentariat names were familiar as well. Trying to reason with such frothing hate is really note possible.
JCC (469de6) — 11/11/2014 @ 3:38 pmGo over there and watch in amusement as my logic and evidence are routinely discounted.
I’ll remember this the next time your acolytes decide they want to play The Dozens with me.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 11/11/2014 @ 3:41 pmTroll the threads with verbose folly, troll la la la la la la.
nk (dbc370) — 11/11/2014 @ 3:50 pmHere is a thought – the law means what the law says. If the president doesn’t like what the law he signed says, he can ask congress nicely to change the law more to his liking. Perhaps they will refuse to do so, in which case the voters can punish them…or not. Or perhaps the congress will craft a compomise that the preident can live with. That is the appropriate solution to the problem he and the democrats created.
The fact that Democrats screwed up the law is nobodies fault but their own. There are perfectly rational and legal means to correct that error, but their preference is simply to lie, or change the meaning of the English language and settled law to suit their needs. That fact alone tells you all you need to know about whether they should get their way.
Tennhauser (8c487b) — 11/11/2014 @ 3:52 pmrocket surgery at work:
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120231/king-v-burwell-supreme-court-case-shouldnt-worry-liberals-yet
narciso (ee1f88) — 11/11/2014 @ 4:00 pmGood lord, narciso!
“It’s easy to argue that the language in the ACA statute pertaining to insurance subsidies is ambiguous.”
Ambiguous? There is an ambiguity in the words “state” and “federal”? Then I remembered that the people behind the New Republic are also the people behind 59 genders* on Facebook.
*I know it’s 58 but I’m adding “normal”.
nk (dbc370) — 11/11/2014 @ 4:09 pmHave you seen this link?
DRJ (a83b8b) — 11/11/2014 @ 4:10 pmThat’s why I’m worried, nk.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 11/11/2014 @ 4:14 pmDRJ – That is beautiful. Hopefully you downloaded it just in case it disappears.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 11/11/2014 @ 4:16 pmSammy – The cost of setting up the federal exchange is a rounding error relative to the overall cost of Obamacare.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 11/11/2014 @ 4:21 pmWhat’s that saying, MD? “Nobodys’ life or property is safe when the legislature is in session.” Ok, it’s true about the courts, too. We can only hope, I guess.
nk (dbc370) — 11/11/2014 @ 4:29 pmWhat I love about the comments that Patterico directed us to is that not only are so many of the Lawyers, Guns, and Money commenters incapable of spelling “Patterico,” but they can’t even correctly spell the name of their comrade-in-arms, “Lemieux.” Yet they would have us believe that they are the intellectuals.
JVW (60ca93) — 11/11/2014 @ 4:35 pm30. daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 11/11/2014 @ 4:21 pm
Sammy Finkelman (652c5b) — 11/11/2014 @ 4:49 pm“assumed that the states would all set up exchanges!”
Nobody involved in drafting the bill was an idiot enough to believe that – but that’s what they told the Congressional Budget Office, and put into their press releases.
If they beleived tyhat all sattes would set up exchanges, they would not ave put into the bill the option for the secretary of HHS to write an exchange – not operate one for a state.
They were trying to get as many states as possible to set up exchanges, and they intended to deal with this in the 107th Congress.
Sammy Finkelman (652c5b) — 11/11/2014 @ 4:55 pmBeutler is almost always wrong, in ways, that make him an honorary voxer,
narciso (ee1f88) — 11/11/2014 @ 4:55 pmWhat I enjoy is how the left, including two of my kids, think mockery is a substitute for logic. Jon Stewart is teaching them this. They don’t know who the vice-president is but they know all of the Kardashian lovers.
Mike K (90dfdc) — 11/11/2014 @ 4:57 pmThat was supposed to say “enjoy is how…” Damn auto-correct. What communist wrote that code ? [It’s OK, I fixed it for you. — P]
Mike K (90dfdc) — 11/11/2014 @ 4:58 pm30. 33. My formatting did not separate Daleyrocks comment about all this being a rounding error from my reply – that is, in 2010, they were trying very hard to squeeze the net cost of the bill over ten years to under $1 trillion, and barely made it, so having the states bear all of the costs for setting up and operating the exchanges was important.
Sammy Finkelman (652c5b) — 11/11/2014 @ 4:59 pm“They were gaming the CBO scoring in 2010”
Sammy – I think you are finally starting to get it.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 11/11/2014 @ 5:32 pm“in 2010, they were trying very hard to squeeze the net cost of the bill over ten years to under $1 trillion, and barely made it, so having the states bear all of the costs for setting up and operating the exchanges was important.”
Sammy – My point is that the software costs should have been and probably actually were even though they were botched so badly a rounding error in terms of that $1 trillion overall cost, especially when you when think about the other games they had to play to get the cost even down to $1 trillion.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 11/11/2014 @ 5:37 pmUPDATE: DRJ provides the link to that Senate Democratic Policy Committee document, which states: “By 2014, each state will establish an Exchange to help individuals and small employers obtain coverage.” I have saved it here in case they memory hole it.
Patterico (9c670f) — 11/11/2014 @ 5:50 pmQuestion is who’s head will explode first – Sammy or Lepeux
EPWJ (9dacda) — 11/11/2014 @ 6:00 pmJust looked over that comments thread. So Lemieux claims that the quote I provided from Obama was “extemporaneous” even though there is zero evidence of that. So I took the opportunity to get in this little dig:
Next thing you know, they’re all saying I am a racist because I said the black president uses a Teleprompter.
They are a fine bunch of guys over there, they are.
Patterico (9c670f) — 11/11/2014 @ 6:01 pmyou’re usually busy playing with yourself, so why would anyone bother to challenge you to a contest you can’t win anyway?
redc1c4 (269d8e) — 11/11/2014 @ 6:03 pmMr Patterico, they are just going to keep moving the goalposts around in the argument,
much like the Global Warming people.
There is nothing they will accept as a contra-proof.
I still hear/read people claim that the “Commenwealth” argument proves state==State.
seeRpea (d2c6e3) — 11/11/2014 @ 6:09 pmHow are you going to argue with that? But almost all them use the same type of argument,
just ignore the text of the law and go with what was wanted.
After all, no one could tell what was in the bill until they passed it . 🙂
Be that as it may, Patterico, you have acolytes. Does Lemieux?
nk (dbc370) — 11/11/2014 @ 6:09 pmIt may be that the ACA self-destructs anyway as insurance companies offer better plans off-exchange to those who can pay, and the ACA plans become a government money pit.
Kevin M (d91a9f) — 11/11/2014 @ 6:09 pmwell timmah was at the beginning of their thread, which raises the level of the conversation, sarc,
narciso (ee1f88) — 11/11/2014 @ 6:22 pmOn a side note about the textualism vs intentionalism earlier. (I agree with the textualism) aspect.
Aren’t conservatives engaging in intentionalism and liberals engaging in textualism with gay marriage constitutionality?
Interesting to see how people flip the script when it suits them.
DejectedHead (532aac) — 11/11/2014 @ 6:23 pmIf we took the SSM proponents’ interpretation of equal protection to its logical conclusion we’d all be licensed brain surgeons.
nk (dbc370) — 11/11/2014 @ 6:27 pm@Patterico
I read through some of the comments. I couldn’t stand it. That is all.
Georganne (92c44d) — 11/11/2014 @ 6:30 pmWith the SSM, the defenders of traditional marriage point to the 14th amendment and proclaim that no one intended it to apply to SSM.
Personally, I’d argue that it doesn’t violate the 14th Amendment because gay people can still marry anyone of the opposite gender.
DejectedHead (532aac) — 11/11/2014 @ 6:32 pmHere’s the thing. You look behind the words when they’re ambiguous. Like “is” or “sex” or “that woman”. But “state” is pretty unambiguous when talking about the #$$%% United %%^(@# States!
nk (dbc370) — 11/11/2014 @ 6:32 pmit really is the ‘argument clinic’ writ large,
narciso (ee1f88) — 11/11/2014 @ 6:32 pm“State” can be ambiguous. It is sometimes used for a term of government in general.
Regarding the ACA language though, it is not ambiguous because they defined the term in the legislation.
DejectedHead (532aac) — 11/11/2014 @ 6:37 pmYes, and when they asked me who the best head of state was, during Brown’s first go as governor of California, I always said Linda Ronstadt. 😉
nk (dbc370) — 11/11/2014 @ 6:45 pmOof! No offense to you intended, DejectedHead.
nk (dbc370) — 11/11/2014 @ 6:48 pmThere is no logical reason why a direct quote from Obama or the lawmakers would count more than that of the architects of the plan. Typically the lawmakers don’t even know what’s in the freaking thing they’re voting on. Obama probably only got summaries of what was in it. Obama’s job was not to give detailed explanations of how it works. As Gruber (who should know) says, the process was not transparent. Lemieux’s premise is risible nonsense.
Gerald A (d65c67) — 11/11/2014 @ 6:52 pmNo offense taken, I didn’t textually read anything that was offensive.
DejectedHead (532aac) — 11/11/2014 @ 6:52 pmBoth ‘states’ and ‘state exchanges’ are referred to multiple times in the PPACA, and both are specifically defined.
Gruber and others were talking of the necessity of restricting subsidies to state exchanges only as the carrot to induce states to do it. The thinking was that states wouldn’t dare deny their own citizens the subsidies by forcing them into federal subsidies.
They are lying through their teeth now and betting the people are stupid enough to buy it.
Estragon (ada867) — 11/11/2014 @ 6:55 pmIt takes quite a tool to disregard quotes that said tool has demanded be provided. Lefty tools do NOT embarrass easy.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 11/11/2014 @ 6:57 pmThe first step to freedom is to reject the carrot and get the monkey off your back.
DejectedHead (532aac) — 11/11/2014 @ 6:59 pm47. It already is in process of self-destruction.
Sammy Finkelman (b869f5) — 11/11/2014 @ 7:06 pmis that even allowed under Obolacare?
i was under the impression that insurance companies could only market approved plans via the exchanges.
redc1c4 (a6e73d) — 11/11/2014 @ 7:11 pm42. No, it’s the heads of people reading me that maybe are exploding. Politico said only $1 billion was set aside for Administrative costs in the PPACA, and nothing at all for HHS to write the software for the exchanges. This was no quirk.
That rounding error did matter.
Sammy Finkelman (b869f5) — 11/11/2014 @ 7:14 pmDid the states understand, when they ratified it, that the Civil War was fought so Ulysses S. Grant would have the right to marry Robert E. Lee?
nk (dbc370) — 11/11/2014 @ 3:04 pm
Didn’t they have to pass that amendment in order to find out what was in it?/snort.
felipe (40f0f0) — 11/11/2014 @ 7:26 pmBack with my wife in Tennessee
When one day she called to me
“Virgil, quick, come see,
There goes Robert E. Lee!”
Now, I don’t mind the dress he’s in
And I don’t care if they say it’s a sin
I know Grant’s a drinker
and he’d jump a toad
But he should never
Have gone up the dirty road
The night Ulysses done The Reb
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 11/11/2014 @ 7:47 pmAnd the bells were ringing
The night Ulysses done The Reb
And all the people were singing
They went, “No, no, no ,no, no… no, no, no no, no, no, no no!”
Here’s what annoys me about the whole deal. They negotiated the state exchanges in order to secure at least one needed vote to pass the bill. This is very well understood. That’s why the language in the law is crystal clear about state exchanges.
During the passage of the bill, the process was almost a mockery of the process, with the majority leadership saying we would have to pass the bill to learn what’s in it, and grandiose promises about keeping doctors and plans that were calculated to enable partisans of the left to call the right liars when they warned of what the law would actually do. We even now know that the champions of the bill were openly cynical about their dishonesty and their dim view of the masses they were successfully deceiving.
So why do they have the attitude that those who were not on the side of shameless lying and broken promises, who merely read the language of the law and say that’s the language of the law, are suspect? Seems to me that they should be falling over themselves to prove their views, rather than insist upon their hidden meanings and promises about intentions, while being so angry at those who simply point to the language of the law.
But I guess they wouldn’t use those tactics if they had better ones available.
Dustin (2a8be7) — 11/11/2014 @ 7:47 pm“That rounding error did matter.”
Sammy – One-half percent of $1 trillion is $5 billion. Anything below that rounds to zero. What do you think they spent or anticipated spending? You’re just quibbling again.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 11/11/2014 @ 7:48 pmColonel Haiku (2601c0) — 11/11/2014 @ 7:47 pm
Brilliantly nasty, Colonel!
felipe (40f0f0) — 11/11/2014 @ 7:51 pmFelipe? That was just fer you and nk…
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 11/11/2014 @ 7:52 pmU kulle rah doe kankee kung, Haiku.
lmgtfy: https://www.google.com/#q=U+kulle+rah+doe+kankee+kung
nk (dbc370) — 11/11/2014 @ 8:00 pmLol nk
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 11/11/2014 @ 8:04 pmJuly 2011 speech by Sebelius announcing release of guidelines for state exchanges with no mention of ability of individual states to opt out:
http://www.hhs.gov/secretary/about/speeches/2011/sp20110711.html
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 11/11/2014 @ 8:07 pmSebelius speech from July 2012 after SC upholds Obamacare. She now mentions states or feds can build exchanges:
http://www.hhs.gov/secretary/about/speeches/sp20120711.html
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 11/11/2014 @ 8:58 pmHere is a link to a December 2012 FAQ from HHS which clearly makes a distinction between a state established exchange and a federal one for the purposes of Section 1311.
https://www.cms.gov/CCIIO/Resources/Files/Downloads/exchanges-faqs-12-10-2012.pdf
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 11/11/2014 @ 9:13 pm#76 , ooof – How could they talk around this one?
seeRpea (d2c6e3) — 11/11/2014 @ 9:40 pmCan the gov’t claim that HHS had no authority and only the IRS does in determining 1311 code of conduct?
“#76 , ooof – How could they talk around this one?”
seeRpea – Truth is not an obstacle for the most transparently lying administration in history.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 11/11/2014 @ 9:44 pmPatterico,
God bless you for walking I to that sewer. I don’t know how you do it. Those people are willfully ignorant and will dissemble or outright lie to get their way. “Ends justify the means” is all that matters to them.
P.S. I hope you showered afterwards.
njrob (ce8248) — 11/12/2014 @ 5:12 amInto*
njrob (ce8248) — 11/12/2014 @ 5:39 amNice try, Patrick, but these people are not interested in reality.
I quit reading when they branded you a “mendacious asshole”.
creeper (24bf97) — 11/12/2014 @ 6:41 amYeah. A**holes.
Of course any criticism of Obama is racist to them. The only reason they voted for him is his race.
nk (dbc370) — 11/12/2014 @ 6:53 amI dunno. It’s entirely possible, even likely, that when Gruber talks about the stupidity of the American voter it’s because he’s met people like Scott Lemieux. It could very well be that despite reality screaming at him in the face, Lemieux will believe what he’s told by the people who draft laws according to the principle that Americans are too stupid to be told the truth.
All the right people with all the right degrees from all the right schools are telling him to disengage his brain and ignore his lying eyes.
The people who lied to pass Obamacare, who brag about lying to pass Obamacare, and are also in your face about who they’ll lie whenever they feel they need to in order to advance and preserve Obamacare, have to be getting the idea that they can keep getting away with it from someone somewhere.
Steve57 (c1c90e) — 11/12/2014 @ 7:00 amWe saw that arrogance in the Lerner hearings, the Benghazi hearings, the Fast and Furious hearings, …. They stay just short of admitting guilt or committing perjury and smirk “Yeah, so, what you gonna do about it?”
nk (dbc370) — 11/12/2014 @ 7:06 amnarciso posted this Bloomberg link on another thread. I think more people may see it here and it’s a good read about citizen journalism and the ongoing failures of “regular” journalism to investigate and inform.
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2014-11-11/meet-the-mildmannered-investment-advisor-whos-humiliating-the-administration-over-obamacare
elissa (2cdac7) — 11/12/2014 @ 7:21 amNo. They also voted for him because he’s a dyed-in-the-wool leftist like they are. Of course, they’re just useful idiots, but they don’t realize it.
njrob (c94106) — 11/12/2014 @ 2:41 pmReading what Lemieux has to say, I suspect he’s saying something slightly different. That is, while states may well have been expected to build their exchanges, there’s no way all 50 were going to – hence the federal exchange. I mean, among 50 people told to do something, you’ll always have (at least) one that refuses.
But he might have won the battle, he’s actually conceding the war. Because it’s clear that the law was setup to punish those one more states that refused.
And of course there’s the whole fact that we’re talking about events that developed and changed, not what the state was at one point in time. The position now is clearly not what people thought it would be when the law was first being designed. That’s been proven perfectly satisfactorily.
scrubone (c3104f) — 11/12/2014 @ 4:49 pmIf the president doesn’t like what the law he signed says, he can ask congress nicely to change the law more to his liking.
Can you recall an occasion where he ever did something so deferential?
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 11/12/2014 @ 4:59 pm“That rounding error did matter.”
69. daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 11/11/2014 @ 7:48 pm
They were coming perilously close to $1 trillion, which is $1,000 billion. They were having a hard time squeezing under it, and as part of that, they limited new administrative costs to $1 billion. Every penny counted.
I need to search more to find something that specifically mentions that cap. The best I get is:
http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/12/c-b-o-raises-cost-estimate-for-senate-bill
The CBO estimate quickly rose above $1 trillion but there was a time when they were desperately trying to keep it under $1 trillion. And I think this was the reason for offloading some administrative costs onto the states. Offloading administrative costs onto state exchanges maybe might not sound like it saves so much (I don’t know the cost of operating healthcare.gov over 10 years) but maybe at one point they needed this.
Here’s a detailed Op-ed piece about how the score was gamed:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/opinion/21holtz-eakin.html
They also excluded some $114 billion in additional operating expenses.
They also had $70 billion coming in premiums for long term care insurance (since abolished) but assumed no outlays in the first ten years.
They assumed $53 billion in additional Social Security taxes but no additional Social Security payments.
They added a takeover of student loans, and figured that would gain $19 billion.
And – the big one – assumed $463 billion would be saved from Medicare.
Sammy Finkelman (652c5b) — 11/12/2014 @ 6:05 pm“There is a crowd of pro-ObamaCare partisans who call the argument of the Halbig plaintiffs “Halbig trooferism.””
The troofer claim, is, as far as I can tell, that the intent of congress was always to use the supposed lack of subsidies as a stick. Which is just ridiculous, because it neither matches the text nor the legislative history.
“The rejoinder by the Halbig plaintiffs is: sure, Congressional Democrats and Obama assumed that everyone would get tax credits — because they assumed that all the states would set up exchanges”
There’s a subsection of the law titled “Failure to Establish Exchange or Implement Requirements.” It describes what happens if a state is not an “electing state.” So it’s not quite accurate to say that. And this subsection says that HHS shall establish “such Exchange.” Meaning, the state exchange. So that should settle the textual interpretation question.
jbroulie (da8bcd) — 11/12/2014 @ 6:12 pm74. daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 11/11/2014 @ 8:07 pm
But they did have the ability to opt out, or rather, refrain from opting in.
The claim is here like this:
It is still a state exchange.
By December 2012 (Elissa’s link) it’s a bit unclear if every state would have its own exchange.
They were saying level of involvement, and they were describing the alternative to a state run exchange as a “Federally-Facilitated Exchange.” Which sounds like, really, still a state exchange.
No intimation yet of healthcare.gov
Sammy Finkelman (652c5b) — 11/12/2014 @ 6:16 pmSammy,
you know you’re just spamming at this point. You’re just trying to convince yourself of this nonsense. It states in each section what the corresponding exchange applies to and which exchange gets government aid.
For you to claim otherwise is to lie just like Gruber.
NJRob (904e37) — 11/12/2014 @ 6:59 pm“But they did have the ability to opt out, or rather, refrain from opting in.”
Sammy – I have not made any claim that they did not in spite of your perseveration. What you should focus on is when HHS began realizing that all states were not planning to set up their own exchanges and began reflecting that fact in their communications.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 11/12/2014 @ 7:33 pmThe other fun part the mouth breathers over at Lemieux’s swamp probably don’t want to face is that states can create an exchange at any time and now that the plain language of the law has exposed the vulnerability of the subsidies, the fact that states are not rushing out to do it just underscores the unpopularity of the law.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 11/12/2014 @ 11:54 pmOr they just read the law in a more commonsense way.
jbroulie (da8bcd) — 11/13/2014 @ 4:01 am95. Our Prof. Speako has multiple tapes explaining this was a designed incentive to the states to put skin in the game.
You have nothing.
DNF (061770) — 11/13/2014 @ 4:18 amOther than the text of the law and the legislative history.
jbroulie (da8bcd) — 11/13/2014 @ 4:37 amThe text of the law, and it’s legislative history, stand in direct opposition to how you wish to have HHS and thebCourts rewrite the law. Gruber acknowledged long ago that this was an incentive for States, as clearly defined in the law, to establish their own. Imdw and its ilk are tiresome.
The American people would appreciate it if you would quit pissing on our legs, and swearing it is raining, while claiming anyone who says you are pissing is a racist and stupid.
JD (285732) — 11/13/2014 @ 5:46 amObamacare is snake oil–just one more in a long line of “health” products where the hype and claims and promises turned out to be exaggerations and outright lies leveraged largely toward the gullible and hopeful. Many saw through the fakery of Obamacare and walked away warning others whom they came across about it, and about the unscrupulous hawkers and promoters. But so many people, for various reasons, were willing and even eager to be duped and used. Gruber has yanked back the curtain on at least some of those people from the left in a quite dramatic way–people who are finding that even though they realize by now that they were “stupid” to be so duped over Obamacare, they do not like being called “stupid” in public.
elissa (1b2c98) — 11/13/2014 @ 6:13 am“The text of the law, and it’s legislative history, stand in direct opposition to how you wish to have HHS and thebCourts rewrite the law. Gruber acknowledged long ago that this was an incentive for States, as clearly defined in the law, to establish their own. ”
The problem is that the law is what congress passes and the president signs, not what’s in some tape from an unelected aide that pops up years later. And that says pretty clearly that should a state not establish its Exchange, HHS can establish and run “such Exchange within the State.”
jbroulie (da8bcd) — 11/13/2014 @ 6:31 pmimdw and Art Deco must be twins. False arguments from irrelevant facts. The issue is subsidies. Subsidies. Subsidies. Subsidies. Subsidies. Do federal exchanges get subsidies? Subsidies. Subsidies. Subsidies.
nk (dbc370) — 11/13/2014 @ 6:36 pmSure they do, how esle would you understand that HHS is to establish “such Exchange.”?
jbroulie (da8bcd) — 11/13/2014 @ 6:38 pmThis is an object lesson in leftists wishing something to be true, and the contortions they will go through to ignore simple facts.
JD (fb69bb) — 11/13/2014 @ 6:58 pmThen that’s not a State exchange. It’s an exchange created and run by HHS in the name of the federal government, and not in the name of the State.
Chuck Bartowski (3e0e89) — 11/13/2014 @ 7:02 pmDid you just say “HHS” can “establish” the exchange?
Because that sure sounds like it’s an exchange established by HHS. Not by the state.
Last time I checked, the HHS Secretary was not one of the 50 states or the District of Columbia.
Patterico (9c670f) — 11/13/2014 @ 7:05 pmIndeed. So is this.
Patterico (9c670f) — 11/13/2014 @ 7:08 pmThe bottom line is that there is no aspect of the PPACA that Democrats have not attempted to rewrite unconstitutionally.
SPQR (4764ea) — 11/13/2014 @ 7:15 pmI think it’s important to not forget the “such” and on the capitalization of “Exchange” too, which work as a reference to the 1311 Exchanges.
jbroulie (da8bcd) — 11/13/2014 @ 7:23 pmI think it’s important not to forget the “established” — and to remember that imdw admitted that HHS “established” the federal exchanges.
Patterico (9c670f) — 11/13/2014 @ 7:26 pmwhat’s after confirmed enemy action?
http://dailycaller.com/2014/11/13/fifth-questionable-video-of-jonathan-gruber-emerges-video/
narciso (ee1f88) — 11/13/2014 @ 7:32 pmPatterico – capitalization in a different section takes precedence over the actual text.
JD (fb69bb) — 11/13/2014 @ 7:37 pmThat’s exactly what the “such Exchange” refers to — exchanges established by the states under 1311.
jbroulie (da8bcd) — 11/13/2014 @ 7:37 pmnarciso, I think I’m going to consider all of this exposure of Mr. Gruber as an answer to prayer, that “the truth will out”.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 11/13/2014 @ 7:44 pmI don’t recall HHS being a State
JD (fb69bb) — 11/13/2014 @ 7:44 pmIf HHS established the exchange, imdw, who established it?
Patterico (9c670f) — 11/13/2014 @ 7:44 pmit’s number 56, JD
narciso (ee1f88) — 11/13/2014 @ 7:46 pmI am so glad jbroulie showed up to demonstrate that the people who lied to pass this fraud, who lied to save this fraud, are still peddling in lies. Now about their previous lies.
Because you don’t have either the text or the legislative history on your side.
The only question for jbroulie is, are you in on the lie or are you one of the gullible fools Gruber was talking about who still has childlike faith in the liars?
Really, jbroulie, you are doing us all a service with this demonstration of ignorance of yours.
Steve57 (c4b0b3) — 11/13/2014 @ 9:32 pm