By Jason Doyle Oden
The McCarville Report
No shortage of Oklahoma reactions to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on King v. Burwell, which decided the fate of subsidies for people using the federal healthcare exchange to obtain insurance under the Affordable Care Act. Members of Oklahoma’s Congressional delegation were critical of the Court’s decision to keep subsidies intact for Obamacare.
“This ruling sets a difficult precedent for the future of legal interpretation. The court ruled that because the text of the law is ‘inartful’ in other areas, they assumed it was also inartful related to the state exchange. Oklahomans shouldn’t pay the price for regulators’ free interpretation. The problems with Obamacare run deeper than just drafting errors. Washington Democrats jammed this poorly written law through Congress five years ago and the resulting ambiguity is one of the many problems we will face for years to come,” said Senator James Lankford.
While Congressman Frank Lucas echoed Lankford’s feelings, he also called for Congress to take action to fix the problems with the ACA.
“The president may be content with Obamacare narrowly surviving legitimate legal questions and the public’s concerns. However, I continue to believe it’s time to repeal this mess and replace it with a patient-centered system that doesn’t assume one size fits all when it comes to you and your family’s health care decisions ,” Lucas said.
Congressman Steve Russell feels the ACA could fall into the same well known issues currently facing the federal government’s handling of healthcare within the Veterans Administration.
“The Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, continues to be unaffordable for the American public. Today’s decision does nothing to change the setback Obamacare has been for the American people and the choices they have providing themselves healthcare. If government healthcare in the Veterans Administration is any indicator, we can predict higher costs, poorer care, and more government inefficiencies. Now the state of Oklahoma, and others like it, will have no choice but to submit to a bad law the people don’t want. We in Congress will continue to fight for the people against these growing concerns.” stated Russell.
Said Senator James Lankford: “I’m extremely disappointed by the decision of the Supreme Court and their new interpretation of not only how to interpret law, but of the law itself.
“What’s really difficult about this is not just the millions of Oklahomans, and Americans, that are negatively affected by the law, with higher premium costs, higher deductibles, higher taxes, fewer choices for hospitals and doctors, fewer choices for insurance options – all those things hurt millions of Americans, to try to protect some others, to get the subsidies. It’s not just that, it’s what happens long-term now to the interpretation of law. This Supreme Court, with this decision, just changed forever the way that law is interpreted in the Supreme Court.”
“They used the term ‘meant to’ multiple times in their majority opinion, and talked about the ‘plain text’ reading says one thing, but they believe it ‘meant to’ say something else. Well, that is an entirely new role for the Supreme Court to not just look at the plain text reading of the law, but to literally for the Supreme Court to be able to write law from the bench and that if Congress writes a law and they don’t like the law, or they want to see a change in it, they now have the ability, based on this precedent, to go back and re-write sections of the law.”
Back in Oklahoma, the reactions ranged from support to calls to action. The minority leader in Oklahoma’s Senate says the system is working, but more could be done.
“The Affordable Care Act is far from perfect, but it is working. The subsidies are helping more than 87,000 Oklahomans access quality, affordable health coverage. But we can, and must, do more for hard working Oklahomans and their families,” said Senate Democratic Leader Randy Bass.
He’s calling for Oklahoma to reverse the decision to reject federal funds to expand Medicaid.
“We need to work together to make sure more hard working Oklahomans have access to affordable healthcare. It’s long past time for us to expand healthcare coverage for low-income, hardworking Oklahomans by accepting Federal funds and expanding Medicaid,” Bass contended.
The leader of the Oklahoma Senate would rather see Oklahoma work toward reducing costs while encouraging our Congressmen to take action to make changes to the ACA.
“Today’s ruling on Obamacare is unfortunate. Yet again, we are forced to comply with a flawed law that has presented challenges from the beginning. Instead of improving health care across the nation, Obamacare has burdened families with increased insurance costs, restricted the decision-making authority of states, and negatively impacted our economy. Now is the time for our leaders in Washington, D.C. to rally around solutions that truly reform this broken health care system,” said Senate President Pro Tempore Brian Bingman.
The Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs think tank would rather see Oklahoma and other states resist the urge to establish a state run insurance exchange.
“Today’s Supreme Court decision in King v. Burwell ignores the clear text and meaning of a federal law. It also wipes away arguments that Oklahoma should build a state Obamacare exchange. The Supreme Court ruling that individuals can get subsidies on the federal exchange renders state exchanges entirely unnecessary, while making clear that Obamacare is not only controlled by, but is the responsibility of the federal government. States should continue to decline to participate in and implement state-based exchanges. Responsibility to repeal Obamacare and replace it with policies that actually improve health outcomes has been and remains with Congress,” said OCPA President Michael Carnuccio.
Sounds to me like they made a decision based on what they ‘thought’ the law should say, not on the actual wording passed by Congress. Lord help us when future decisions will depend on the clairvoyant talents of the black robes.
But considering the pathetic knee-jerk outcries against the Confederate flag, Jefferson, Lee, etc., why should we expect any general logic right now?
Yep, laws no longer have any meaning.
When the President, judges (at any level), and non-elected administrative personnel can arbitrarily “write” laws without any significant repercussion/rebuke, it is very evident that they have no respect for the Constitution nor Congress! That is a failure of Congress and of leadership at all levels!!!
Such events are a very strong indication that our public school systems have failed to teach grammar, punctuation, and other language skills. Also evident is the failure to teach (and demand) thinking based on knowledge and logic. A third factor is the failure to teach accountability and to demand accountability of all. *** We, as the American people, have allowed and encouraged this failure. ***