Letter 2 America for July 22, 2014

Dear America,

Kudos are due the conservative movement in this country for finally reaching the ultimate depth of political depravity.  There were three judicial decisions yesterday and today in cases questioning the legality of the subsidies that less affluent people are eligible for under the ACA (Affordable Care Act), otherwise known in Republican circles as "Obamacare."  One of those decisions affirmed the legality of those subsidies, but the other two did not, setting the stage for a protracted battle over the issue all the way to The Supreme Court, which begs this question: What kind of people look for a way to prevent the working poor and the lower middle class from getting health insurance, which they otherwise wouldn't be able to afford.  The issue is a legitimate one in the sense that our congress, both houses, and our president for that matter, made a simple mistake in the drafting of sections 1311 and 1322 of the ACA in that the language inadvertently made those subsidies available only to those who get their insurance through the state insurance websites, but failed to mention the federal website at all in that context.  That's significant because thirty four states declined to set up their own websites, either because they wanted to rely on the federal site rather than incur the redundant expense of creating their own or out of obduracy in an attempt to undermine the ACA.  So, technically the issue of whether the IRS can give the subsidies--which take the form of tax credits--to people who got their insurance on the federal site is legitimate, but who would raise it.  What kind of people would take from people...needy people...the resource that makes health insurance possible for them?  It's clever in that if they can kill those subsidies, the ACA might well wither and die--that's what they have been striving for since 2010 when it passed isn't it.  But it is a contrivance considering that the purpose of the ACA was to do just what the provision in question is doing now--subsidize insurance for people who need subsidies.  But while technically, as I said, they may be right, it wasn't a problem until the plaintiffs in these cases made it one.

One case was filed by a U.S. Senator, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin who challenged the authority under the ACA of the Obama administration to give subsidies to congressional staff, some of whom apparently aren't paid very well if since they purportedly qualify. That case was dismissed by a federal judge in Green Bay because Senator Johnson had not established that he was harmed by the drafting imprecision of his organ of government, the legislature.  But in the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., the case of Halbig v. Burwell, who is the Secretary of HHS, was also decided, and in that case, the three judge panel ruled 2-1 that the law doesn't provide for subsidies to those insured through the federal site.  And then there is the case of David King, et al. v. Burwell decided by a unanimous three judge panel in the Richmond courthouse of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals upholding the subsidies in another putative taxpayer suit.  In the latter case, the plaintiff-appellants complained that they would have to buy health insurance if they were eligible for the subsidies or face a tax penalty, which only demonstrates the insincerity of the whole enterprise...plaintiffs complaining about being helped because they value something less than they do nothing.

These lawsuits could not be mounted by individuals eligible for subsidies because of the enormous cost of litigating in the federal courts on this level.  Obviously, the suits complaining about subsidies are being subsidized themselves, but not by a government endeavoring to be provident.  Rather they are being subsidized by a conservative, monied establishment that opposes the Democrats and President Obama first, and the ACA only because they didn't provide the relief that it represents for people who are financially disadvantaged in this country.  And joining them in their efforts are the attorneys general of several states that chose not to provide their citizens with an ACA website, elected officials working against the provision of an opportunity to get insurance for the poor and near-poor in their respective states.  It is a sinister political ploy intended to thwart a progressive president and his party, and as such, it is Machiavellian, perfidious, disingenuous and generally reprehensible.  That a political camp would go to this length...denying their constituents the opportunity to provide affordable insurance for themselves and their families...is despicable without question, and it is my hope that it will be the coup de grâce for a form of conservatism that stands for cynicism, greed, obduracy, callousness and a kind of dogmatism that is an internecine force in our country today.  We are being consumed in the sense that what we have been is being transmogrified into something cold, hard and barren by a chiliastic minority bent on assuming the helm of the ship of state.  I hope the nation takes this exhortation to heart: show them what we are made of.  Vote.

Your friend,

Mike