OPINION:
President Obama on Monday took a swipe at the Supreme Court, saying the nation’s highest court should never have taken the lawsuit that challenges Obamacare — and declaring that overturning the law would be a perversion of justice.
“This should be an easy case, frankly it shouldn’t have even been taken up,” Obama said during a press conference at the G-7 summit in Krun, Germany.
The lawsuit, King v. Burwell, could eliminate subsidies for 6.3 million Obamacare enrollees if justices find merit in the case and overturn a portion of the Affordable Care Act when they rule this summer. But Obama said that authors of the health care law “never intended” to block federal subsidies for people in states that did not create the requisite exchanges.
“If, in fact, you have a contorted reading of the statute that says federal-run exchanges don’t provide subsidies for folks who are participating in those exchanges, then that throws off how that exchange operates. It means that millions of people who are obtaining insurance currently with subsidies suddenly aren’t getting those subsidies; many of them can’t afford it; they pull out; and the assumptions that the insurance companies made when they priced their insurance suddenly gets thrown out the window. And it would be disruptive — not just, by the way, for folks in the exchanges, but for those insurance markets in those states, generally. So it’s a bad idea. It’s not something that should be done based on a twisted interpretation of four words in — as we were reminded repeatedly — a couple-thousand-page piece of legislation.”
Obama continued: “What I can tell state leaders is, is that under well-established precedent, there is no reason why the existing exchanges should be overturned through a court case. … And under well-established statutory interpretation, approaches that have been repeatedly employed — not just by liberal, Democratic judges, but by conservative judges like some on the current Supreme Court — you interpret a statute based on what the intent and meaning and the overall structure of the statute provides for.”
While the high court justices have taken months considering the arguments, Obama said: “This should be an easy case. Frankly, it probably shouldn’t even have been taken up. And since we’re going to get a ruling pretty quick, I think it’s important for us to go ahead and assume that the Supreme Court is going to do what most legal scholars who’ve looked at this would expect them to do.”
And Obama declared, “The thing is working. I mean, part of what’s bizarre about this whole thing is we haven’t had a lot of conversation about the horrors of Obamacare because none of them come to pass.”
While berating the third branch of government, Obama also took a shot at the second branch. “A, I’m optimistic that the Supreme Court will play it straight when it comes to the interpretation. And, B, I should mention that if it didn’t, Congress could fix this whole thing with a one-sentence provision.”
“It doesn’t need fixing. All right?”
This isn’t the first time Obama has taken a shot at the Supreme Court. During his 2010 State of the Union address, Obama condemned the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling, saying, “Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests – including foreign corporations – to spend without limit in our elections.”
Cameras caught Justice Samuel Alito frowning and mouthing the words “not true.” Chief Justice John Roberts later said, “The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court – according the requirements of protocol – has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling.”
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