We’ve blogged several times on the emotional appeals ObamaCare supporters are putting forward in the King v. Burwell case, which has gone to the Supreme Court (here and here, for starters).
If you listen to them, you may come away thinking that the main thing ObamaCare supporters dread is the loss of subsidies if the Court does not rule in their favor. David Catron, however, says that it is something else that they fear: the democratic process:
If you carefully consider the claims of Obamacare’s defenders in King v. Burwell you will discover that their worst fear, sanctimonious pretense notwithstanding, is not the loss of insurance subsidies for some Americans. The most terrifying prospect for proponents of PPACA is that the Court will let Congress clean up its own mess.
They do not want our elected representatives to have another chance to consider the will of the voters while revising Obamacare. And this is precisely what will happen if the justices fail to find anything in the law’s text permitting subsidies to be distributed via federal exchanges.
After hearing from the Solicitor General of the awful things that will ensue in the event of a ruling against the government, Justice Scalia said, “You really think Congress is just going to sit there while… all these disastrous consequences ensue…. Congress adjusts, enacts a statute that takes care of the problem.” This was not comforting to ObamaCare supporters.
In fact, it was their worst nightmare. ObamaCare was rammed through a Democratically-controlled Congress by means of unsavory deals, novel parliamentary maneuvers, and old-fashioned arm twisting. And still, it just barely made it. Going before a Republican-controlled Congress, at a time when we know more about what was in the Affordable Care Act, is not what they want.
Catron observes:
Scalia’s suggestion that Congress should perform its constitutional role, for [ObamaCare supporters], is evidence that he is a GOP partisan.
Catron has a good analysis of the arguments by the Obamacarians (his locution) but in the end, he argues, it mostly boils down to a fear of letting Congress have a chance for a redo.