June 25, 2015
The Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, has just survived another SCOTUS challenge.This one had to do with whether the text of the law authorizes certain insurance subsidies for individuals. Many people on both sides of the issue felt that a lot was at stake in this ruling. Today we bring you a few different perspectives on the court's ruling.
 
Also, political writer Beth Ballentine has another article up on the AllSides blog that you may be interested in. It's called How to Spot Your Partisan Bias
 
"The crisis an anti-ACA decision would have created for Americans dependent on insurance subsidies would fall hardest on states whose GOP leaderships have refused to set up state exchanges.As decision day approached, most were flailing about for a remedy. In almost every such state, there existed almost no possibility of hastily creating a state exchange to forestall the loss of insurance for thousands of constituents. Congress could step in with a one-sentence fix to the ACA, eliminating the ambiguity seized on by the King plaintiffs, but the Congressional GOP showed no willingness to do so and continued to talk about repealing the law as if that were a simple matter or a rational step. It would be neither."
 

Snippets from the Right

Breitbart
"Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a press release Thursday morning, 'This is unfortunate news for the millions of Americans who have experienced first-hand the devastating effects Obamacare has had on their families and businesses. While today’s ruling is disappointing, Obamacare remains one of the broadest overreaches of federal authority in our nation’s history and we must continue to call on our leaders in Washington to step up and put an end to this job-killing law.'
Former Governor Rick Perry, a 2016 presidential candidate, quickly added the following in a press release:'The Obama Administration has ignored the text of the Affordable Care Act time and again, and today’s ruling allows them to continue to disregard the letter of the law.'"
 

Snippets from the Center

NPR
"'Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them,' the court's majority said in the opinion, which was written by Chief Justice John Roberts. But they acknowledged that 'petitioners' arguments about the plain meaning ... are strong.'
…In his dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia said: 'We should start calling this law SCOTUScare,' an apparent reference to the fact the Supreme Court has now saved the Affordable Care Act twice. Scalia called the majority's reading of the text 'quite absurd, and the court's 21 pages of explanation make it no less so.'"