This afternoon, Judge Rosemary Collyer issued her ruling on the motion by the Administration to forego a ruling on the merits in the United States House of Representatives v. Burwell, a challenge brought by the House to unilateral action taken by the Administration under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). After losing its motion to dismiss the case on standing grounds, the Administration sought (over the objections of the House) to remove the case to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia without ruling on the merits of the case. Judge Collyer denied the motion and set the case for final briefing and ultimately a final ruling.
The ruling today means that the United States House of Representatives now will be heard on an issue that drives to the very heart of our constitutional system: the control of the legislative branch over the “power of the purse.” The Administration has long argued that it has the authority to order the payment of what will amount to $175 billion over the next ten years to insurance companies without an appropriation of funds by Congress, notwithstanding Article I, section 9, clause 7 of the Constitution which provides that “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” We are eager to present the House’s merits arguments to the Court and remain confident that our position will ultimately prevail in establishing the unconstitutional conduct alleged in this lawsuit. Regardless of the outcome, the public deserves an answer to this fundamental constitutional question.
Judge Collyer’s decision is linked below.
I would again like to thank our extraordinary team in this litigation. Specifically, I would like to thank General Counsel Kerry Kircher; Deputy General Counsel William Pittard; Senior Assistant General Counsel Todd Tatelman; and Assistant Counsels Eleni Roumel, Isaac Rosenberg, and Kimberly Hamm. It is an honor to be part of this team and this case.
Jonathan Turley
Lead Counsel, United States House of Representatives v. Burwell
Karen: My experience with healthcare under Obamacare is completely different. I can only conclude that you’re fabricating stories about high expenses of you and your “friends”.
DBQ: Economic ignorance is a problem in this country, indeed, and it’s causing good people like you to fail to see the truth about Obamacare.
Healthcare costs go up without Obamacare because the treatment provided to uninsured patients is frequently an unrecoverable cost to healthcare providers, costs which are then shifted onto paying customers or their insurance companies. That’s Economics 101. As more employers eliminated health plans for their employees, the rising number of uninsured meant more unrecovered costs for healthcare providers, meaning that healthcare costs were rising more rapidly as those costs were shifted onto the bills of paying customers. No question about that.
The reason so many uninsured patients are receiving treatment is because law requires treatment for anyone who presents themselves to an ER. There are many good reasons why we don’t turn anyone away at the ER, both logical and moral. Now, if your like Olly, you let anyone who can’t provide proof of payment die. But if you’re like me, who has had kids roaming about at times without ID, you want everyone who shows up at an ER to be treated first and worry about the charges later. Not everyone is conscious or carrying ID with them when they wind up in an ER (Think: someone caught in a severe fire.). Beyond that,there is a national security component in the case of an outbreak of a highly contagious disease.
Nevertheless, you’re entitled to your own opinion about Obamacare, but not your own facts. The rise in healthcare costs in this country has slowed. Other countries have done extraordinarily well with more socialized versions of health coverage, not only with making their societies healthier but wealthier. One only need to look at Germany, or the amount of Canadian investment in this country. Obamacare is predicated on private insurance and the number mergers taking place in the health insurance industry is the surest indicator of what the free market thinks of Obamacare.
In fact, the only reason insurance companies dislike Obamacare, and the only reason Karen S. invents her stories to align with Fox News, is due to the requirement that at least 80% or more of premiums be spent on providing healthcare. The only change your Republicans would make to Obamacare would be to remove restrictions on administrative spending and profit, at which point Karen, er, I mean Fox, will be singing a different tune.
Karen,
I’m sorry I don’t have time to respond to all the errors, misdirection and misinformation in your comments. I’ll see if I can get to it after work.
Meidcare isn’t running out of money unless it’s underfunded. Is the military running out of money? Hardly.
Are Congressional salaries not being paid? They have money for what they want to have money for. Medical costs are rising for a dozen different reasons.
If you want to get rid of the freeloaders, start with all the corporate welfare and let’s go from there.
Sunny, There are takers and producers. The takers on the dole are the most greedy, entitled and nasty people in this country.
“Sooner or later you run out of other people’s money.”
The road to hell isn’t paved with good intentions; it’s paved with Liberals and their ideas.
And if Medicare is running out of money so desperately . . . hmmm . . . what could possibly be the result of a national socialized medicine scheme? Hmmm . . . let’s think . . . we’ve had that debacle with the VA . . . and SSDI and Medicare is going broke.
So I guess it would all just work out because we have high hopes?
“The answer is still Medicare for all.”
Please address the fact that Medicare is running out of money, and the benefits today are less than the benefits offered 20 years ago, and they cost more.
So . . . if we put EVERYONE on Medicare, which is running out of money already . . . what do you think will happen? A magic money tree will grow up and fix everything?
This reminds me of this Far Side cartoon of a mathematician having covered the board with complex equations got stuck, and then wrote “Then, a miracle happens” in order to conclude his proof.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/23/us-usa-fiscal-health-idUSKCN0PW21720150723
http://www.ssa.gov/oact/trsum/
For all of you people who think that we can just put everyone on Medicare and it will just solve everything, here is a quote from the government’s own website:
“Social Security’s Disability Insurance (DI) Trust Fund now faces an urgent threat of reserve depletion, requiring prompt corrective action by lawmakers if sudden reductions or interruptions in benefit payments are to be avoided. Beyond DI, Social Security as a whole as well as Medicare cannot sustain projected long-run program costs under currently scheduled financing. Lawmakers should take action sooner rather than later to address these structural shortfalls, so that the uncertainty now facing disability beneficiaries will not eventually be experienced by other programs’ participants, and so that a broader range of solutions can be considered and more time will be available to phase in changes while giving the public adequate time to prepare. Earlier action will also help elected officials minimize adverse impacts on vulnerable populations, including lower-income workers and people already dependent on program benefits.
Social Security and Medicare together accounted for 42 percent of Federal program expenditures in fiscal year 2014.”
Already, Medicare and SS account for 42% of Federal spending. So . . . here’s a math question. If we put everyone in the country on Medicare, what will happen to our spending? How do we like our taxes? Do we go to our CPA’s every spring and say, “Gee, don’t try to utilize all my deductions in order to reduce my tax bill. I’m not paying enough!” Because if it’s already running out of money with a fraction of our population involved, it staggers the mind to consider what kind of taxes we would be paying to put everyone on. It wouldn’t be “free healthcare”. Oh no. We would pay for it, and it would be higher than the premiums we used to pay. It would be called fees and taxes, but the net result is that we would all pay more to get less. Again. As per usual when the government tries to “help us.”
What do people do the minute they vote for higher taxes? They immediately try to avoid them. Look at CA. We voted to be the highest taxed state in the nation. And yet, after requiring small businesses to pay exorbitant amounts in minimum wage and work comp and regulations and licensing . . . permits . . . ADA requirements . . . what do Californians do? They pay cash to illegal aliens to babysit their kids, do their landscaping, and remodel their houses. Go to any work site and see how many people speak English. Why is that? Because they’re getting paid cash under the table. Because all those costs of doing business means that doing business legally is expensive. So the same people who voted for all those costs because they wanted to feel good about helping people immediately try to find a way to get out of paying it themselves.
philat:
“Most of the people who had good insurance got it through their employers.”
Actually, no, most people who had insurance liked their insurance, regardless of whether it was individual or an employer policy.
It is true that individual policies are more expensive than employer policies, because the employer contributes part of the cost of the premium.
My husband is self employed, and we had individual policies. Although the premiums were more expensive than what I paid when I worked for an employer, they were still affordable for us and had great coverage, as I said.
AFTER Obamacare, my individual policy premium doubled and my deductible increased 1100%.
That is called a DECREASE in affordability.
Most people admit this, because it’s not disputed that removing subsidies means that people cannot afford Obamacare.
Basically Obamacare caused people to pay premiums akin to Cadillac policies, with deductibles akin to Catastrophic only coverage, with insurance benefits worse than what they were before. How are the benefits worse?
1. Exponentially less affordable
2. Restricted doctor network (meaning less access to specialists, a death sentence for people with life threatening illnesses who lost access to specialists)
3. Restricted drug formulary
4. No more off-formulary co-insurance benefits
5. Out of pocket costs for off-formulary no longer count for max out of pocket expenses or deductibles
6. Many doctors do not accept Obamacare policies because they amount to a 30% pay cut (how many of us would be supporting of cutting our own income 30%?)
7. In order to keep their doors open, doctors who do accept Obamacare adopt a factory model, spending minutes with each patient rather than the attention that they need. This is a common complaint in general among patients, and yet Obamacare worsened its occurrence
8. Reduced competition among insurance companies. Because Obamacare flooded insurance companies with more poor and sick patients than anticipated, most insurers left the CA Exchange entirely, and the same phenomenon was repeated in other states. Now, there are just a few insurers left in CA. Less competition. Closer to a monopoly is NEVER in customers’ best interests
9. OPEN ENROLLMENT!!! Let me capitalize and exclamation point that. For all you people who have blind faith in Obamacare, there is no excusing Open Enrollment, and no claiming it’s in patients’ best interests. If you lose your insurance for any other reason besides getting fired or laid off, you will be uninsured until the next open enrollment period. That can mean being forced to go without insurance for an entire year. Then you’ll get fined on your tax returns.
It is intuitively obvious to the most casual observer that Obamacare caused a net decrease in the affordability and quality of health care for millions of people. And the “low cost” health care it supposedly offers to the poor is a false promise of health care, because as stated above, that insurance is not accepted by most doctors and you have to pay out of pocket for many prescriptions, thus costing them actually more than before.
The Republican Party is going the way of the Tories, true enough, and the sooner the better. It’s a dysfunctional mess that has brought our economy and democracy to the brink. The people need to have a government that functions as it should.
Philat,
Seriously? You just said that people who work for compensation are evil.
And that failures and other people who get “FREE STUFF” for doing nothing, are honorable.
Excuse me, please. I have to go curse.
I have no doubt that many multiple good Americans would be happy to obtain a buyout of all governmental
programs, such as Social Security and Medicare, and take care of themselves and handle their own affairs.
More people should ascribe to the American thesis of severely limited government, freedom and
self-reliance.
The Founders did.
Too bad you don’t.
I’m still laughing, hours later, at anyone(Annie) can bemoan the greed of capitalism while exhorting the payment of others bills by those that earn the money. So the guy that earns it is greedy for wanting to keep it to help his family, and the guy that doesn’t earn and wants “free” stuff is not. If that is the tree you are growing your fruit on, the fruit can’t help but be poisoned.
Most of the people who had good insurance got it through their employers. Having been self-employed most of my adult life, I can tell you that even joining the small business pools in various states has never amounted to enough buying power to have access to a quality health insurance policy. And then there are the 45-50 million people with no insurance.
So yes, I understand that a lot of people with “good” insurance lost that, or had to pay more.
The answer is still Medicare for all. Everybody pays in, every employer, every employee. It would open up a world of entrepreneurial endeavors not seen in our history–all those hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people who would like to start a business but can’t afford a family policy out of pocket.
And I do hope that Congress takes back its power. The republican (i.e. Tory) party, has long ceded power to the presidency in its long-held belief in the throne and the Restoration. It’s high time they do their job, and I sincerely hope that should they ever hold the presidency again, which I doubt, that they will remember they wanted this, they asked for this, they sued for this. Be careful what you wish for.
Meanwhile, back in reality, I hope that President Hillary Clinton or President Sanders will pursue Medicare for all with all due haste.
Believer, thanks. That was real fine.
Now please delineate the differences between the Communist Manifesto and the American thesis according to the writings of the Founders and the literal words, not perversion or “interpretation,” of the Preamble, Constitution and Bill of Rights circa 1789.
Let me help you.
Communist Manifesto:
Central Planning
Control of the Means of Production
Social Engineering
Redistribution of Wealth
American Thesis:
Freedom and Self-Reliance Facilitated By Severely Limited Government
Most societies today are a combination of various components of “political economy”. That was the phrase our founding fathers used to refer to the study of politics and economics. Because I have put so much time and research into this specific issue, I think it would serve people well to read something I wrote a few years back. I tried not to place my political perspectives into this paper.
See the link below. It’s to long to post. Yes we have various socialistic policies, yes we a weeee bit of capitalism, and yes we have a weeee bit of communism but mostly we have a whole lot of fascism. Just read what I’ve written and then you’ll understand why I believe this. I’ve attempted to break down the various definitions into two categories; 1. who makes the decisions and 2. what kind of economic system is used. It’s never really been edited so please understand it is still a draft. I’ve been told it’s pretty good.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/harrietrobbins/anuASCIPc6E
To me this is perfect. It has in realty boiled down to one branch of the government suing another branch of the government to obtain or maintain powers; most of which were not constitutional provisions granted by the Citizens in the first place.
How can taxes be fair when everyone has different expenses, incomes, needs, desired and productive potentials. That is illogical but then again what is logical in today’s world? The term fair tax was surely derived by the statists because all libertarians know taxes can’t be fair. That reminds me of the company “Liberty Tax Services”. How can you have liberty and tax in the same company name. Probably owned by social democrats.
I see little logic in our political arena today, but people acting in their own selfish interests trying to get as much money from the public treasury as they can by any means possible. This is the exact opposite of free enterprise where one person must voluntarily satisfy the needs of another, for themselves to prosper.
It appears the statist are the true ones calling the kettle black. Yet they will never admit it.
Congress must win this lawsuit or this will be, the biggest power grab by Obama since the birth of this country.
Obama is breaking the law by stealing the people’s money to pay for his failed and expensive healthcare program. Take the money from a Congressional approved account and not from the treasury.
Why can’t we have across state competition for healthcare, instead of this Obamacare debacle that threatens to arrest people and put them in jail if they don’t pay this extremely expensive monthly premium.
Congress has to win this one or we will be in big trouble and Obama will crossover from president to dictator.
“forgotwhoiam” This is an answer to your post.
“Please delineate any differences between Communist China and Free Enterprise America.
Both engage in:”
——————————————————————————————————–
1. “Central Planning” Ans:………….. This is part of a democracy also.
2. “Control of the Means of Production” ………. Partially true. America does have laws and now with “O” we have many thousands of restrictions that we have a chance to delete when he is no longer president.
3. “Social Engineering” ………Some as there are areas and situations where Social Engineering does take place. It is taking hold but is not completely in full swing yet. Not all areas are subject to it.
4. “Redistribution of Wealth”…..No argument on this as it has been a runaway train since Obama has taken office. If not stealing from the lock boxes, giving welfare, providing sustenance & housing for the illegals/refugees, making the people dependent on the Govt, Obama is a pro at that and tax, tax, taxes out the wazoo. He definitely is trying to “fundamentally transform America” but he will not succeed.
5. “Both rule by committee.”……. In China- one man sets the tone for the entire committee and country and once more, in America, Obama an arrogant man threatens to get his way with congress. We have no leaders in Congress. True.
Here is where I begin to differ with you. I did say we are close to a change, but we are not there yet. ……. You seem to think we are a socialist/communist nation. Unless Putin plans on knocking off Iran, I say it will be Muslim first as the world is fast becoming Muslim and Obama is pushing toward “ONE WORLD ORDER” In which Iran is the wannabe ruler and Obama just signed over all our sanctions and the money to Iran. IRAN needs to secure the western world, so Russia’s Putin made a deal with the devil to secure the world and be the enforcer for the UN and the devil needed a strong arm (that left Obama out of the mix) who could keep order in the world this secures Putin’s own section of the world he dominates. As we all know, Russia has overrun its neighbor and is still working to get the original Soviet Union back together.
6. “China entertains no vote of the population”…..True, no argument here.
7. “America engages in the subterfuge of “one man, one vote democracy.” ………. True, however, in the past they had to prove current residency of at least 3 mo in certain states, there was a set time to register, but not anymore, now voters no longer have to speak English or know any of the country’s history, All this depending on the President at the moment. Even the dead can vote, or illegal aliens and now refugee/terrorists that he is bringing to America will be placed strategically in certain cities, given the right to vote, in order to give the democrats more of the vote to screw up the Electoral vote. If Obama remains his full term in office, it is likely we may never have another election after this one. The goal is to stop the illegal transporting of any people who cannot be vetted as to whether or not they are warriors or actual refugees. An army of people who hate America, a type of Trojan Horse to takeover from within.
8. “Does anyone still promote the myth that America represents freedom, not the slavery of communism?”
The answer: Yes, I do believe one blogger on this post “Annie” seems to believe we are a Capitalist country and until this year I did also. Annie, please correct me if I am wrong.
At present we are in the first stages but won’t be hard core communist until “O” completes the task of taking over our guns. The lone wolves, and the Black lives people, are trying to create enough havoc to give him a reason to bring in the U.N. and call Martial Law. At which time if he is still in office, he will probably stay in office. The citizens will have to fight for their freedom or submit and accept the loss of the freedom we currently have. I am sure all the 100,000 refugees/terrorist mix he is importing to our country will be of help to him in his final task. It remains to be seen if our people surrender to Obama or he takes over by force.
9. Alibaba challenges Amazon.? (This means nothing to me)
10. “America lost its freedom in Lincoln’s “Reign of Terror” which was facilitated by a Supreme Court.”
WRONG, Sorry, America lost a lot in Lincoln’s “Reign of Terror”, but not its freedom. If you are living in the same United States as I, you would know what true freedom was and to a degree still is. We truly had freedom, but are fast losing it due to the complacency of the citizens and the lack of knowledge of its history and the “dumbing” down of the young. Complicating the matter are the millions of non-assimilated immigrants that have been given amnesty and the millions “O” has allowed to come in illegally. When it comes to the history of this country, I can converse with you on any of the last eight presidents having presided over this country in depth and on any event that affected the lives of its citizens. Of course I may have already forgotten a third of what I knew but that would probably be twice the knowledge that you could possibly have ever known about this wonderful country.
Truman was no prize but the most stupid of our leaders was Carter and it has gotten worse through the years except for Reagan who was remarkable in most areas except on immigration, also, he was only using half a deck as he had problems with memory during his last years. Now “O” is the worst and the only spineless one. It is due to the stupid rules/laws of some of these leaders that our citizens no longer have to learn the history of the country, learn the language and accept this as their country. Many of our congress and the other leaders of our states have very little knowledge of the country’s history. They do not recognize the similarities to the world wars, The lies Hitler told as he began to take over territories, we see that being mimicked today as it was in Hitler’s time. The only difference, no gas chambers, instead the current ethnic cleansing is accomplished with knives and torture. another similarity, Russia moved into Afghanistan once but had to tuck tail and crawl beaten and battered back home in defeat after years of fighting. Now Putin has his army built back up and is going to try it again. America paved the way for him to puff himself up and act cocky while they fought the last 10 years giving Putin time to build up his army. And the only reason we failed was due to the lack of leadership (on purpose) of the man who was born muslim and who occupies the W.H.
You know, ancient history is alive and well today. We are being taken over by stealth, illegals/terrorist sneaking in over the border, through an influx of refugees and with the blessing of the Trojan Horse occupying the White House. In reality they are already here and “O” wants to remove our guns and leave us defenseless. Not all are as stupid as he thinks. He is using stealth as Putin did in Crimea, Dumb leaders making the same stupid mistakes. Our biggest problem at this point in time is the Trojan Horse that is occupying the W.H.
11. “Incremental communism won.” ……… NO, first, there is no such thing as Incremental Communism, it is either communism or Democracy. Granted we have been crippled by a Uber King whom until there is a functioning ruling congress all must watch him break law after law. This is still a capitalistic country where we have some freedoms though. Thus, we do have a fighting chance. I must say our leader has been busy building an army that is answerable to only him and dispersing our armies to other countries to fight for people who hate our guts.
At this point I must ask, “forgotwhoiam” what brought you to America, it apparently is not because you relish the idea of living in a free country. Why did you contrast the U.S. with China? Obviously I do not believe it was China that brought you to America,… more like Putin since you like to quote Nikita Khrushchev. Are you sure there is not some connection there? OH , regarding Khrushchev, he was wrong. That man had a temper and was quite good at throwing things, but horrible at predictions. Looks like he predicted wrong, we got to see him burried, not him bury us. Oh well, that is how the cookie crumbles. OOps, another screwed up prediction.
12. “We will bury you,” Nikita Khrushchev.” ……….I don’t think so, he is gone and we are still here.
Imagine that.
DID I ANSWER ALL YOUR QUESTIONS?
Seems to me that most people will agree that
1) there must be some limits on the executive powers of the president that can be enforced by the courts, and
2) the plaintiffs in this case are for the the most part unprincipled partisans whose primary goal is to weaken Obama and who would have never brought a similar suit against a Republican president.
Not an ideal situation, but reflective of the way things happen in the real world.
As someone who has handled lots of litigation at both the trial and appellate levels, I think that there is at least one other point that most reasonable people should be able to agree on, a point not mentioned previously. Whatever your view of the merits of this suit (or the lack thereof), an appellate ruling in this matter is likely to be a “better” ruling if that ruling is based on a full record developed through a trial.
I have had a number of cases in which the trial judge told me that they didn’t like certain legal arguments I was making and they were going to prevent me from introducing certain evidence relating to those arguments. I then told them that I would be appealing any judgment adverse to my client and asked that I be permitted to present ALL evidence on ALL issues in the trial so that the appellate court could have the benefit of that evidence in deciding any appeal. The judge usually allowed me to put on my evidence, to avoid the possibility of the need for a second trial at a much later date if I won an appeal.
And I’m certain that the resolution of those cases on appeal was better reasoned than if I had not been able to present my evidence to the court.
So let’s bring on the trial.
I have mixed feelings about this suit. I’d like to see what happens at trial before flapping my gums in great detail about the case. I apologize in advance for breaking the prime internet directive, which is to insist that my views are right without having taken the time to properly study the issue.
I do see more than a little irony in comments by those who insist that government can’t ever do anything correctly and can’t ever be held accountable by its citizens when their freedom to comment on this blog is attributable in large part to the fact that our system of government has for the most part worked, at least up to this point.
So I say that it is probably a good thing to hold a trial in this case before the case goes up on appeal, as it will no matter who prevails at trial.
Annie i agree re scalia comments above….a total can of worms that takes the power from the ppl. We have the power now it is called impeachment….not limited to obama. So if lawbreaking like this is vindicated by courts not only do we lose our political process of sweep them out voter accountability we lose pwr of impeachment…..that will be ‘contempt’ if a ct case goes one way or permissible if the other. But if the later impeachment itself is obe. Its sad to watch jt warn about the orbits of power while simultaneously undermining impeachmnt which applies to judiciary too. You can predict where the power will lie. The orbit of Unelected….then unimpeachable judges.
Worked for Greece, didn’t it?
Affordable Health Care? Free is affordable, isn’t it? Let’s just have free health care! Send the bill to the government and let them settle it. Oh? They have to get the money from somewhere to pay for healthcare, and that would be the rest of the population? No problem:
Why not just have free everything? Have the government issue credit cards to everyone, then whenever anyone needs or wants anything they can present the card to the provider to pay for it, and the government will pay the bill. Get rid of money. Everything is credit these days anyway, and the Fed just issues more credit whenever the government needs it. Nobody should have to pay for anything. There would be no more need for greedy banks and other corrupt government institutions. No more collection agencies or title loan companies. A lot of evil lawyers would be gone, too. The only people who might object to this system would be the dang foreigners. They likely wouldn’t trade with anyone in the USA if they didn’t get paid. But who needs them, anyway? Americans can make everything they need, and keeping commerce all within the USA would provide more jobs for Americans, many of whom are out of work currently, right? This would be the ideal economic solution to everything.