From the intense and often stupid reaction to yesterday's King v. Burwell ruling, you'd think Chief Justice Roberts didn't just yank Republicans' feet out of the very intense fire they were about to walk through.
If that ruling had gone the other way, they'd have found themselves in fresh hell until they fixed the language in the bill, but the Chief Justice gave them an out, opened the door, extended his hand, and invited them to walk through.
They're too stupid to do it. At this point, it's like a pack of rabid dogs trying to rip apart the carcass of the Republican party without thought to the aftermath.
For example, one lawmaker's answer to the ruling was to introduce legislation forcing the Supreme Court Justices, their staff and their families to purchase their health insurance through the exchange, without the usual government subsidy, of course.
Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas) said that his SCOTUScare Act would make all nine justices and their employees join the national healthcare law’s exchanges.
“As the Supreme Court continues to ignore the letter of the law, it’s important that these six individuals understand the full impact of their decisions on the American people,” he said.
“That’s why I introduced the SCOTUScare Act to require the Supreme Court and all of its employees to sign up for ObamaCare,” Babin said.
Babin’s potential legislation would only let the federal government provide healthcare to the Supreme Court and its staff via ObamaCare exchanges.
“By eliminating their exemption from ObamaCare, they will see firsthand what the American people are forced to live with,” he added.
This proves two things. First, Babin doesn't know WTF he's talking about since ACA plans on the federal exchange are modeled after the Federal Employees' Health Insurance Plan (FEHBP). And second, they wouldn't notice a difference.
He missed the memo about 2/3rds of insureds liking their policies under the ACA, because he was too busy foaming at the mouth about it.
The entire field of 2016 GOP hopefuls promised the party faithful they'd repeal it. Damn the consequences, full speed ahead, but more than that, it proves they had no plan for replacement ever. After all, how can you replace something you think is Satanic to begin with?
Speaking of Satan, Sean Hannity ominously declared that death panels were coming now. I won't put you through actually listening to it. You already know the schtick anyway.
More Satanic verses: TeaBircher media is floating conspiracy theories to explain how the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court could possibly interpret the law as it was written.
After all, this is the title of Title I of the PPACA: "TITLE I—QUALITY, AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE FOR ALL AMERICANS"
...which conservatives wanted the court to interpret as "quality, affordable health care for Americans living in states with state-based exchanges."
Finally, a moment of derp for Justice Scalia, as words from his own dissent in the 2012 decision were inserted into a footnote by Justice Roberts to justify his position:
To defend making the subsidies available to consumers everywhere, Roberts cited a line the dissent to the 2012 decision in favor of Obamacare, in which Scalia said, "Without the federal subsidies . . . the exchanges would not operate as Congress intended and may not operate at all."
Roberts used the line to argue that it "is implausible that Congress meant the Act to operate" in a manner to limit the subsidies only to those states with state-operated exchanges, as the challengers in King v. Burwell argued.
All of this backlash just shows the danger of falling into an echo chamber loaded with dishonesty, because there really just wasn't a case there to begin with. They all started believing their own lies, even when the pits of political hell were threatening to open before them.
Now that Justice Roberts has pulled them back with a market-based argument, those free marketeers are crying and kicking.
Just let them cry it out for now and then hammer every one of them in 2016.
Bonus: Dave Weigel and Sahil Kapur rounded up the strongest of the crazy train cars so I didn't have to.
