Supreme Court Ruling Stopped Elections From Having Consequences

 It's discouraging that once a Supreme Court rewrites a law for Congress, it's permanent.

Obamacare passed the Senate with a simple majority as a reconcilement bill, claiming it would save, rather than spend money.   After a Republican won a Massachusetts special election by campaigning against Obamacare, Democrats no longer had the votes to break a filibuster.

Roberts bent over backwards to make the penalties into taxes to make the bill Constitutional.  He did that because in 2012 it was clear that sending it back to Congress for a rewrite would mean the bill would be defeated.  Roberts' ruling prevented Congressional elections from having any consequences, and removed the consent of the governed from the bill.

Now Obamacare is the status quo, and it takes 60 Senate votes to get rid of it.  The suit asks the Supreme Court to do the right thing and send the bill back to Congress for a rewrite.  The WSJ EB says they won't, but the ruling will show the need for more originalist judges.

Allow Escape from Obamacare

It's clear that Obamacare can't be repealed, but it doesn't have to be. The Cruz Amendment, to allow insurance companies to sell health insurance that does not comply with any of the Obamacare coverage mandates, is the only logical answer here. Let people escape from Obamacare, and you won't have to repeal it. Obamacare will be abandoned by most sensible health insurance customers except for people in high risk categories. If people can vote on Obamacare with their feet, Obamacare will lose. This provision could be included in a reconciliation bill if the government loses enough on each person covered by a subsidy. Any person who left Obamacare for lower cost private insurance would save the government money.  The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) would have to be leaned on a little bit, but they richly deserve it. The CBO said Obamacare would save the government money. Given how far into a death spiral Obamacare is, that's a big LOL at this point. The Congress needs to pass instructions to the CBO on how to score people who leave the program for less expensive private insurance as part of the bill. The prediction should be based on the rates people paid before Obamacare, adjusted by the cost of living. If the CBO won't follow instructions, fire the top earners in the CBO and get a revised estimate. They serve at the pleasure of the majority party in Congress essentially. It's time to pretend we're ruthless Democrats like Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. A provision like this will force Democrats to explain why people can't choose their own coverage, even coverage that doesn't cover pre-existing conditions. The cross subsidy younger healthier people give to sicker older people under Obamacare is something Democrats conceal, because socialism is sold by fraud. Make Democrats explain why Obamacare has to be a government enforced monopoly, why they can't permit any private competition. When the lies about who pays the true costs are exposed, it will be easier to pass a bill. That's the alternative that will work.

Obamacare: A Legacy Unsustainable Death Spiral

Obamacare passed with no Republican votes. Democrats made all of the false promises. "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your plan, you can keep your plan." There was no way either of those statements could be true under the law that the Democrats passed. Everybody except Nancy Pelosi knew it. She "had to pass it to see what's in it." Democrats made all of the enabling regulatory decisions, like the contraceptive mandate. Democrats own Obamacare.

Obamacare is in a death spiral right now. As rates go up, fewer, sicker, people sign up, then rates go up more. Obamacare was designed to be a huge government health subsidy program, but Democrats claimed that it wouldn't need subsidies. So Marco Rubio made them put it in writing. One of the funding bills says that there will be no insurance subsidies from the government. That's why all of the low ball rates have bankrupted the made-for-Obamacare coop insurance companies.

There is no way an individual insurance market can be sustainable without a prior condition exclusion. Everyone just waits until they are sick to sign up. 
The penalties for no insurance would have to be almost as high as the cost of the insurance to induce people to buy the insurance.

The program also didn't allow rate differences by age. This was designed to force younger and healthier people to subsidize older, sicker people. Unfortunately, the younger and healthier people are having trouble finding jobs in Obama's crummy economy, so they can't afford the overpriced insurance.

The Democrats brag that they have a plan. The Democrats say the Republicans don't have a plan. The problem is that the Democrats' plan is a gigantic failure, so it's not a real, sustainable alternative. The Republicans want to use free market mechanisms to lower the overall costs of healthcare in the economy. The Democrats say that's not a plan, because the government has no active role. Given how badly the government has messed up healthcare under the Democrats' Obamacare plan, do you really want the government to be more involved in any new plan?

One area the federal government might fix is in the supply of medical care. You do not need to be a full-fledged MD to see patients with ordinary complaints like sore throats, runny noses or minor injuries. In the US Military, these functions are handled by Physicians' Assistants and Nurse Practitioners. Perhaps the new healthcare plan should establish federal licensing requirements for Medicaid recipients that would allow them to be seen by Physicians' Assistants and Nurse Practitioners whether the state licensing laws allow it or not.

Another thing Congress could do is limit malpractice awards in Medicaid cases to no more than twice the economic damages. This would lower the cost of delivering healthcare to the needy. The federal government should also set up high risk pools for people with uninsurable preconditions.

The government could mandate published prices for procedures for both doctors and hospitals. The statistics should include both the list price and also the average price paid by private insurance as well as the average price paid by government sponsored insurance. If the government can force nutritional labeling standards on food products, it should be able to force published price lists on hospitals and doctors. The trend away from first dollar health insurance coverage is well under way. The federal government should take steps to lower built in costs, increase information available to consumers and encourage price competition.

Obamacare Death Spiral is Democrats' Plan

Obamacare passed with no Republican votes. Democrats made all of the false promises. "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your plan, you can keep your plan." There was no way either of those statements could be true under the law that the Democrats passed. Everybody except Nancy Pelosi knew it. She "had to pass it to see what's in it." Democrats made all of the enabling regulatory decisions, like the contraceptive mandate. Democrats own Obamacare.

Obamacare is in a death spiral right now. As rates go up, fewer, sicker, people sign up, then rates go up more. Obamacare was designed to be a huge government health subsidy program, but Democrats claimed that it wouldn't need subsidies. So Marco Rubio made them put it in writing. One of the funding bills says that there will be no insurance subsidies from the government. That's why all of the low ball rates have bankrupted the made-for-Obamacare coop insurance companies.

There is no way an individual insurance market can be sustainable without a prior condition exclusion. Everyone just waits until they are sick to sign up. The penalties for no insurance would have to be almost as high as the cost of the insurance to induce people to buy the insurance.

The program also didn't allow rate differences by age. This was designed to force younger and healthier people to subsidize older, sicker people. Unfortunately, the younger and healthier people are having trouble finding jobs in Obama's crummy economy, so they can't afford the over priced insurance.

The Democrats brag that they have a plan. The Democrats say the Republicans don't have a plan. The problem is that the Democrats' plan is a gigantic failure, so it's not a real, sustainable, alternative. The Republicans want to use free market mechanisms to lower the overall costs of healthcare in the economy. The Democrats say that's not a plan, because the government has no active role. Given how badly the government has messed up healthcare under the Democrats' Obamacare plan, do you really want the government to be more involved in any new plan?

Changing Obamacare Takes More Than Winning Elections

Liberals are fond of saying that if Conservatives don’t like Obamacare, they should win some elections and change it.  The problem with this liberal advice is that the GOP did win several elections with Obamacare as a major issue, but political shady deals, rigged court cases and liberal obstructionism kept those elections from mattering.   While Obamacare was being considered, the GOP won the December 8, 2009 election to fill the Senate seat of Edward Kennedy, who had died.  Republican Scott Brown won the election by promising to filibuster Obamacare.  The result was Democrats lost their 60 vote filibuster proof majority.  The Democrats passed a badly flawed bill in the House later in 2009, to avoid having the Senate vote again on a revised bill, which the Republicans would have filibustered with their newly added Senator Brown being enough to stop the bill.  The GOP won the Congressional election in 2010.  Obama and the Supreme Court revised Obamacare numerous times without Congress.  The bill was poorly drafted, but Obama wanted to avoid having to compromise with the Republican House and Republican Senators ready to filibuster.  The GOP won another Congressional Election in 2014, and took control of the Senate.  President Obama's response was to use his pen and phone trying to legislate without Congressional involvement.  In effect, Obama wanted to negate the election results.  

So tell any liberals who say that the GOP needs to win some elections that all elections are supposed to count, not just presidential elections.  Congress is supposed to legislate, not the Supreme Court and not the president.

Amendment Needed to Check Supreme Court

I think it’s become perfectly clear in the last week that the Supreme Court is abusing its power.  It seems to me that recent decisions of the court are based on what the majority of the justices want the law to be rather than what the law is.  I think that the unchecked power of the Supreme Court has proven to be a design flaw in the Constitution. To return our government to the rule of law instead of the rule of nine appointed judges, I think we need to consider changing the Constitution to check the power of the Supreme Court.  First let me explain why we need to check the Supreme Court.  Then I’ll take a shot at proposing an amendment which I think will help.

I am in favor of gay marriage. If the court had ruled that a legal marriage performed in one state must be recognized in all states, I would have been very happy with the decision. The means Justice Kennedy used instead have badly damaged the outcome. The Supreme Court made it up in both the Obamacare case and the gay marriage case. The whole point of having written laws is that they are predictable. Everyone is supposed to be able to understand what the law is and live by it. Under current circumstances, Supreme Court rulings are more like professional football games. On any given case, the Supreme Court can change the plain meaning of the words in a statute, or the clear understanding of a Constitutional Amendment when it was ratified.

In the Obamacare case, the statute language said subsidies would only go to purchasers who used an "Exchange established by the State.” The Supreme Court added the words "or the federal government" because too many states did not set up exchanges. It's clear that the bill was very poorly drafted. In the bad old days, when Congress was the only legislature, this would have been a problem only Congress could fix. Instead, the executive and judicial branches conspired to cut Congress out of the process. This disenfranchises all of the voters who elected Senators and Representatives in 2010, 2012 and 2014. If the court had ruled that the statute meant what it said and the stayed its order until 12/31/15 to give Congress and the President time to fix the mess, that would have been a ruling on what the law is rather than what 6 justices thought Congress intended the law to be.

In the gay marriage case, the Supreme Court used the 14th Amendment to rule that gay marriage was mandated by the Constitution. In 1868, when the 14th Amendment was passed, homosexual acts were illegal in every state. The state legislators who voted to ratify the 14th Amendment thought they were ratifying equal rights regardless of race. When the 14th Amendment was used to invalidate laws against mixed race marriage, this was exactly what the ratifiers would have expected. None of them would have expected that gay marriage was what they had ratified.

One way to fix this might be a Constitutional Amendment permitting a Supreme Court minority opinion to be ratified by the legislatures of a majority of states within two years of any decision. If this happens, the minority takes effect instead of the majority ruling. This would put the brakes on crazy Supreme Court rulings that ignore the plain language of the Constitution or statutes. It would also give states back some of the power they have lost to the federal government.

I think that this is reasonable. The minority opinions are learned legal opinions, so this is not a blank check for the state legislatures. The mere possibility of opinions being overturned in this fashion might promote moderation and compromise in Supreme Court Decisions.  If the threat wasn't enough, the remedy would not be easy, but it would be easier than a specific Constitutional Amendment to overturn a bad Supreme Court reading of the Constitution. It also would be easier than impeachment to correct a bad appointment.