SCOTUS Will Hear King v. Burwell, Affordable Care Act Case, Today

A straightforward explanation of the points at issue is available from Jessica Mason Pieklo at RH Reality Check. A live-blog of the decision as it is issued is provided by SCOTUSblog's Kali Borkoski. Note that only decisions will be live-blogged; live-blogging of arguments from within the chamber is not permitted. (SCOTUSblog has a workaround: aperiodically one of their attendees leaves the chamber and reports. If I recall, that person cannot be readmitted, but I'm not sure of that.)

ACA (Anti-Care Actors)?

If plaintiffs petitioners succeed in persuading the Court to rule that, based on four words in isolation, Congress really intended to punish citizens of states that did not set up their own exchanges (depending instead on the federal exchange), millions of Americans will lose their newly acquired health insurance.

This is Chief Justice John Roberts's second chance to kill and bury the Affordable Care Act... or not. He is regarded as the swing vote on this case. The Act survived the Court's first ruling.

A subset of Republicans has been trying again to kill the ACA ever since. Very probably, if Roberts votes against it, the ACA will go down in flames; if that happens, Roberts will earn his "ace" rating for exhibiting the baldfaced inconsistency of voting against his own earlier ruling. Republicans in Congress whine endlessly about the ACA, but they have carefully avoided constructing their own viable alternative. As always, they'd rather spite the President than save your health insurance.

Is this a great country, or what? (Hint: I'm betting on "what.")

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AFTERTHOUGHT: Scalia is a piece of work. Here's Sahil Kapur at TPM, quoting parts of the verbal sparring in the hearing...

WASHINGTON — Justice Antonin Scalia expressed confidence on Wednesday morning that Congress would act to mitigate the damage if the Supreme Court ruled to invalidate Obamacare subsidies for millions of Americans.

"You really think Congress is just going to sit there while all the disastrous consequences ensue?" he asked Obama administration lawyer Don Verrilli.

The U.S. solicitor general had a sarcastic retort.

"This Congress, your honor?"

The audience in the packed courtroom laughed.

"Yes," Scalia protested, "I think this Congress would act."

...

NO rational person... no RATIONAL person... could come to that conclusion about the TP-controlled Congress we have right now. If the Supreme Court kills Obamacare, I am sure as I'm sitting here that it will stay dead.

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UPDATE: No decision in King v. Burwell today. Not too surprising...

DC Circuit: ACA Contraceptive Mandate Does Not Impose Burden On Religious Groups

Via Richard Lyon at Kos, we get the word from CBS-DC:

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court on Friday rejected a challenge to Obamacare that would have enabled non-profit religious organizations to avoid government-approved contraception programs.

In a 3-0 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit concluded that the challenged regulations do not impose a substantial burden on religious groups.

...

Now it only remains for the Supremes to reverse... [/sigh]

An Unpleasant Example Of Why I Say This Is No Longer A Political Blog

If this were a political blog, I would be obligated to try to debate wingnuts on the effectively indisputable fact that the current Supreme Court acts in a primarily partisan political mode on many issues of greatest import to ordinary American citizens... such as this one.

The Five...
and I don't mean Russian composers!

But it's not a political blog, so instead I'll have a glass of wine and a snack, watch YouTube videos or bad broadcast TV, and let the ACA die an unnatural death at the hands of that all-too-political Supreme Court. Hey, what I propose to do... actually not to do... is the American way, right?

Think Obamacare Is Crashing And Burning? See These Photos...

... at Kos, from signup locations all around the nation. Note also that acasignups.net says that as of 3/31/2014 (IOW, not an April Fool joke), the grand total of enrollments is 14.6 M—22.1 M. Apparently that's 101.1% of the target for this enrollment period. If I had not already been enrolled in Medicare as of a couple months ago, I'd have been in those lines myself. Obamacare is far from perfect... Medicare-for-all would have been better... but insuring that many Americans is an accomplishment I can only applaud.

As to the GOPer reaction, they're going to regret having so firmly attached Obama's name to this program. Margulies said it well:

What Is Wrong With This Conversation?

Chris Z, Jane's boss (of either sex): Here are your options for our company's medical insurance. Please select one by Tuesday.

Jane X, female employee: Hmm... I want a medical insurance plan that covers contraception. I want to use the morning-after pill. If my husband has a plan that covers erectile dysfunction medication, and we've already had as many kids as we want, I'd better be prepared. I don't see such a plan listed among my options. The Affordable Care Act requires that I be offered that option.

Chris: You can't have it. I am opposed to morning-after contraception on religious grounds. It's my company, and I won't offer a plan that covers that.

Jane: But I'm paying the premium. The law doesn't require you to pay for the plan, only to make it available.

Chris: I won't do it. It's against my religion, and this is a company of God-fearing people.

Jane: But it's not against my religion, and I'm as religious as you are. I'm the one paying for the coverage, not you, and the ACA requires that coverage. It's the law.

Chris: If you persist in demanding something I believe is immoral, I'll take the matter to federal court.

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News Report: OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- A federal judge granted an injunction Friday that prohibits the government from enforcing the federal health care law's requirement that insurance coverage include access to the morning-after pill and similar contraceptives on almost 200 religious organizations that have filed a class-action lawsuit to block the mandate. ...

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Jane: But what about my religious freedom? You're requiring me to abide by the tenets of your religion. There was never such a clause in my contract with you. All I'm asking is that you comply with the law.

Chris: Well, I guess you'll just have to work for someone else. Please pack up your desk. An HR representative will see you to the door.

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What is wrong with this conversation? Everything!

(NOTE: Chris and Jane are wholly fictional. The court ruling is not.)

Boehner Fails, Falls Upward, Successfully Enrolls In Obamacare

Josh Marshall, editor of TPM:

Late last week Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) made a big show of trying but failing to sign up for Obamacare because of the notoriously buggy website. (Actually he appears to have been using the DC exchange site.) He even did a special tweet noting his hopeless situation. Not terribly surprising given the frustrating experiences so many have had.

Actually, it turns out he had successfully enrolled and got a call confirming that about an hour after his tweet. But it gets better.

According to Scott MacFarlane, a reporter for the local NBC affiliate in Washington, reports that a DC Health Care exchange representative actually tried to contact Boehner by phone during the enrollment process but was put on hold for 35 minutes, after which time the representative finally hung up.

Boehner is really a royal son-of-a-bleep, isn't he?

AFTERTHOUGHT: last week, I had a 100% successful encounter with a different federal government website, and I now have a Medicare card in my pocket. Yes, I made two phone calls to the SocSec-Medicare help line, but both were content-related, as the website itself worked flawlessly. Boehner's experience just goes to show that if you want government to fail, it can be made to fail. My experience shows that it doesn't have to.

Goodhair Announces New Obstruction Of Obamacare Signup

Dylan Scott of TPM, yesterday:

Joining a growing conservative movement around the country, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) made a move Tuesday that's likely to impede efforts to sign up the uninsured for health insurance under Obamacare starting next month.

Perry sent a letter to the Texas Department of Insurance outlining new rules for Obamacare's so-called navigators, organizations assigned to help people sign up for coverage, the Texas Tribune reported. Those rules include: 40 hours of mandatory security training on top of federally required training. He also wants navigators to pass a state-administered exam and be subjected to background checks.

...

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services lambasted Perry's move as a transparently political attempt to impede Obamacare's implementation...

In fact, an HHS official told TPM, part of Perry's guidance — which requires navigators to retain information about consumers who sign up for coverage — would actually violate the privacy regulations established for navigators by HHS.

"This is blatant attempt to add cumbersome requirements to the Navigator program and deter groups from working to inform Americans about their new health insurance options and help them enroll in coverage," HHS spokesman Fabian Levy said in a statement. "This is clearly an ideologically driven attempt to prevent the uninsured from gaining health coverage."

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(Bolds mine. - SB)

Bad-faith actions by state-level executive branches can effectively throw a spanner in the works of a federal system like ours. It is increasingly obvious that this is the intention of the GOP in Texas and other Republican-dominated states regarding Obamacare. Who would have thought that a GOPer would operate in bad faith... [/sarcasm]

CPPP: If Rick Perry Accepted Texas Participation In ACA, Texas Uninsured Count Would Be Cut In Half

According to a new report, Choices and Challenges, issued by the Center for Public Policy Priorities (press release [.pdf], full report [.pdf]), thanks to "Gov. Goodhair" Perry's rejection back in July, along with other Republican governors, of his state's full participation in all parts of the Affordable Care Act, we are losing an opportunity to cut Texas's uninsured rate in half.

In other words, half of the people in Texas who have no medical insurance now would be able to obtain insurance, if Gov. Perry would relent on his heartless commitment to... well, to whom, exactly? His refusal is even bad for the state's health care industry! ThinkProgress put it this way back in July:

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Perry’s announcement is an especially harmful move because Texas will benefit more from the Affordable Care Act than any other state. Texas was recently ranked worst in the country for health care delivery by the federal Agency for Health Care Research and Quality, scoring “weak” or “very weak” in nine of 12 categories. Perry’s office discounted the study as overly broad, and has argued that Texans’ real problem is personal health choices, not lack of health insurance.

More than 25 percent of Texans – 6,234,900 people – are uninsured, the highest rate in the nation. ...

...

Between Perry's dismissal of people's need for medical insurance (reminiscent of the CEO of Whole Paycheck a few years ago) and Mitt Rmoney's remarks about the 47% who are dependent on the government, this seems to be "National Republican Blame‑the‑Victim Week." They really are proper bastards, aren't they?

So WTF are Perry and three other Republican governors thinking? Matthew DeLuca at The Daily Beast attempts to answer that question:

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Perry may not like the idea of expanding Medicaid,  ... Some studies show that without the Affordable Care Act, the number of uninsured Texans could climb all the way to one third of the population.

Health care is one of the state’s biggest industries, and hospitals in Texas are likely to push hard in the coming months to get the Lone Star State to take Obamacare into its warm embrace. ...

...

Let me insert a note: a quick glance does not show any change in Perry's position since July (ThinkProgress Aug. 27, Dallas Morning News Sep. 17). Resuming DeLuca:

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The Affordable Care Act is supposed to go into full effect in 2014, but Perry says he will not implement the expansion of Medicaid or creation of a state health-care exchange prescribed by the law. ...

“To expand this program is like adding a thousand people to the Titanic,” Perry said Monday on Fox News. “You don’t expand a program that is not working already.”

...

Could we please arrange for a deck chair for Gov. Perry? His disinclination to implement federal law (even if he is legally entitled... can I say "entitled" about a Republican?) reminds me of the Tea Party, or worse. Say, could we arrange for the TP to make up the rest of the "thousand people"?