Federal judge rules Obamacare is being funded unconstitutionally

[mjr]

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-...nap-story.html

"A federal judge ruled for House Republicans on Thursday in their suit against President Obama and declared his administration is unconstitutionally spending money to reimburse health insurers without obtaining an appropriation from Congress.

The judge's ruling, though a setback for the administration, was put on hold immediately and stands a good chance of being overturned on appeal."

Looks like this has to do with the following Article and Section in the Constitution:

http://usconstitution.net/xconst_A1Sec9.html

[s_stabeler]

um, I thought the appropriations were included in the bill itself.

Not to mention that it thee is the same issue as when they tried to defund the ACA when it was being introduced: if you don't like the bill, then try to get it repealed. don't let the law stand, but refuse to allow the bills to be paid.


The reason I have an issue with defunding parts of the ACA is this: If you strip out funding for parts of the ACA, it basically guarantees it failing spectacularly. (in the case of the compensation payments, if they weren't paid, then presumably premiums would need to rise so that insurers could cover the cost of insuring people they are forced to insure despite the individuals being poor insurance risks. Not to mention that judging by the level of honesty shown by the republicans, they would use the now-unfunded mandate to claim "Obama introduced these mandates without accounting for the cost!!elebenty!!!" (note- this is me mocking those republicans that believe that Obama is solely responsible for the flaws in the ACA, when several of said flaws were caused by compromises demanded by those self-same people. (one flaw, for example, is that the ACA doesn't stop insurers demanding high premiums. Originally, there was going to be a government option- a basic plan that people could sign up for if all the private insurance plans were too expensive. the republicans demanded it's removal, then complained when (predictably) the effect of the competition never appeared. Not to mention Republicans blaming the ACA for people who had to buy insurance because their states refused to expand Medicare- even with the federal government footing the bill- who struggled to afford it when had Medicare been expanded, thye would have been eligible)

EDIT- oh, and mjr, the thread title's a little bit inaccurate- it's not the method of funding the compensation payments that has been deemed illegal- as in, where the revenue is coming from- but the act of spending the money. I wouldn't quibble, but there were complaints that the revenue-raising parts of the ACA were unconstitutional when it first came out, and the thread title makes it sound like a federal judge ruled that those parts were illegal.

[mjr]

One of the other problems with it, IMHO, and IIRC, is that it had money in it for things completely unrelated to healthcare.

And the $650 million price tag for a website that didn't initially work. Haven't these people ever heard of Agile/SCRUM and/or Kanban? And Unit Testing? And Integration Testing?

[HYHYBT]

Why *is* Congress able to both enact laws requiring money be spent and withhold the funds? It's a nonsensical setup.

[mjr]

presumably premiums would need to rise so that insurers could cover the cost of insuring people they are forced to insure despite the individuals being poor insurance risks

Premiums have already increased. In some cases more than they did pre-ACA.

EDIT- oh, and mjr, the thread title's a little bit inaccurate- it's not the method of funding the compensation payments that has been deemed illegal- as in, where the revenue is coming from- but the act of spending the money. I wouldn't quibble, but there were complaints that the revenue-raising parts of the ACA were unconstitutional when it first came out, and the thread title makes it sound like a federal judge ruled that those parts were illegal.

I took the title straight from the article.

[Daskinor]

Yea this wont stand up in a higher court, they also cherry picked the region they filed this to get a friendly judge.

Here is the gist after wasting an hour reading the decision.

-One of congresses constitutional powers is to say this pool of money is for this, but can not actually spend any money. The executive branch is the only ones allowed to "Write the checks."

-Healthcare law goes in effect, says that the government will reimburse costs to insurance providers for people in certain categories.

-Department of Health and Human Services asks for money to do this, congress says no.

-Department of Health and Human Services has a legal requirement to supply this money and does so from a miscellaneous section of their general fund.

-Congress Critters say you cant do that, because reasons. Its really just circling Article 1 Section 9 Paragraph 6 over and over again. The precedents for congress' point of view is quite weak. With the administrations much stronger, if you appropriate miscellaneous funds to an agency that agency can use them as needed.

-So the House of Representatives legal team build a case and sue in a jurisdiction that is more friendly to their point of view. And win in that court.


What does the future hold....

There is almost no way the appeal will fail, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has shot down something similar not that long ago. So the provision in the affordable care act will stand. After that I doubt the Supreme Court will pick it up. They don't like getting involved in these fights and would rather let a lower ruling stand unless lower courts rule differently.

[s_stabeler]

[QUOTE=mjr;165019]Premiums have already increased. In some cases more than they did pre-ACA.
/QUOTE]

while true, that's a) in some cases, due to people having to buy insurance that would have been on the expanded medicare b) quite possibly opportunitism on the part of insurance companies- IOW, since they can blame premuim increases on the ACA, increasing premiums by more than they otherwise would c) there were originally provisions in the ACA to discourage exactly that- the government option was designed to discourage unnecessary premium increases ( by providing competition for insurance companes, so they have to offer better value for money than the government option) but the Republicans nixed that, claiming that it was that bogeyword, Universal Healthcare, by the back door.

Although not completely related, Republicans have actually done quite a bit that shows that "fiscal Conservative" is a misnomer, at least as far as it is applied to these yahoos. Fro example, the Republicans- IIRC- introduced rules that mean some government departments are legally banned from taking advantage of economies of scale.