Win or Lose Halbig, Obamacare's Biggest Troubles are Still Ahead

To say that Obamacare enthusiasts are having a bad few weeks
would be a major understatement. First, a three-judge panel at the
DC Circuit Court ruled against them in Halbig vs.
Sebelius, a lawsuit they
called “stupid” and “criminal” for arguing that the subsidies
that Uncle Sam was handing out through 36 federal exchanges
violated the law. Then, videos surfaced showing that one of the
law’s key architect’s – MIT’s Jonathan Gruber – had gone around the
country two years ago basically making Halbig’s “stupid”
and “criminal” argument, only to change his tune after the lawsuit
was filed.

Meanwhile, liberal bloggers, who set out to destroy, once and
for all, Halbig’s argument, ended up confirming it. Greg
Sargent of the Washington Post excavated Senate documents
that he said proved — proved — that subsidies through
federal exchanges were legitimate because they were contained in an
earlier version of the bill – only to be
explicitly dropped from the final law!

And yesterday our friends at the Competitive Enterprise
Institute petitioned the Supreme Court to rule on the legality of
these subsidies before the full DC Circuit reverses the three-judge
panel and the lower courts are still split, given that other
Circuits have rejected Halbig’s argument.

But the odds, I note, in my latest column at The Week,
are that the politically squeamish Chief Justice Roberts won’t
accept the case. He’ll let the issue be resolved at the lower court
level instead of getting his hands dirty in a partisan
mudfight.

That might mean the end of Halbig, but not the end of
Obamacare’s political troubles. “The program’s biggest
vulnerabilities are still down the road,” I note. And that’s no
accident. The administration postponed implementation of the more
painful aspects of the program till after the president is safely
out of office — partly through the original law and partly by
altering the law through executive fiat. Hence:

a postponed tsunami of discontent awaits ObamaCare, just around
the time the president exits office, when union plans are hit with
new taxes; insurance companies may require a bailout; appropriation
battles get underway; providers confront massive cuts; hospitals
suffer losses; employers face mandates; and patients, once again,
revolt against sticker shock as they are forced to pay higher
penalties or buy policies they don’t want…

So, the Obamacare film will be at 11 every night for the
forseeable future.

Go
here to read the whole thing.