A majority of the nation is going about its business unaware of the most recent “front” in the political trench-war of American politics. The United States Supreme Court is hearing arguments Wednesday in the case of King v. Burwell.
King v. Burwell is the ticking bomb that could destroy the 2016 presidential aspirations of Republican candidates. It will strand millions without insurance. Save small business. Unhinge the health insurance moors of society. Reveal the true costs of Obamacare. Unleash wrath of God stuff or, for our atheist friends, systemic cultural chaos. Or perhaps it won’t do any of those things.
If you ask the SCOTUS blog, the debate turns on “Whether the Internal Revenue Service may permissibly promulgate regulations to extend tax-credit subsidies to coverage purchased through exchanges established by the federal government under Section 1321 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.”
Clear as Vodka, which explains why most Americans are unaware of what is at stake. But come June we’ll find out what nine unelected lawyers saw when they looked through that Vodka, along with a smattering of debate about who made their decision after emptying the bottle to find out what was in it.
If you ask me what it all means, I’d begin with David Catron at The American Spectator.
It has nothing do with any “plot to kill health care,” as the New York Times recently put it. Nor does it involve a surreptitious conspiracy to reinvigorate the “states’ rights” movement, as it was described last week in Politico. It isn’t even an attack on Obamacare, though a ruling in favor of David M. King and his fellow plaintiffs would obviously have a profound effect on the future of the “reform” law. It is rather an attempt to prevent the President from doing further violence to the Constitution.
King v. Burwell is about federal law as written. Not just this federal law, but every federal law, now or ever. If the law is not enforced as written, federal legislators will never be held to account for their laziness. If legislation does not mean what it says and Government men are free to reinterpret the meaning of federal laws to suit their current mood, then there is no law.
David Catron’s Spectator article closes with this:
It’s no coincidence that John Adams included Livy among those who influenced his view that a republic was “a nation of laws, not of men.” Livy personally witnessed the events that converted Rome from the former to the latter. If the Court caves again, we will have witnessed the same fundamental transformation of our country.
We could see a fundamental transformation of our country, but is it a dismal journey down a dark hole to tyranny, or could it be used to ignite an American political Renaissance?
The federal government, of which the US Supreme Court is but one crooked branch, has no power without the states. If it should decide that the President or his bureaucratic henchmen have the power to massage the meaning of federal law to fit their mood, then states should take that to mean that governors and legislatures have equal authority to ignore federal law to fit their own.
If King v. Burwell goes bad for the rule of law, states should immediately challenge not just the quackery of Obamacare, but every and any federal statue, regulation, or rule that violates the only law that matters: the United States Constitution.
On the matter of health care, every state without an exchange should abandon Obamacare completely and establish rules for local regulators who can then ignore unconstitutional laws or mandates in their sovereign territory.
In New Hampshire, we’ve already banned the creation of a state exchange for the Patient Affordable Care act. We have made it illegal to charge a fee, or to fine any resident who refuses to purchase health insurance.
There are bills in the legislature to open the marketplace to out of state carriers and to protect taxpayers from fines charged against public employee plans labeled by the Federal government as Cadillac plans; the public employees would bear those costs themselves if they bargained for that kind of coverage.
To quote my good friend Dan Itse, states have powers, the powers of the people; he wrote an entire book about it.
While the federal government is stacking the deck and party lines are blurring in the nation’s capital, there are fifty legitimate and constitutionally recognized entities that make America, and each has the power to tell the federal government, individually or in unison, to go to hell.
Whichever way King v. Burwell goes, the grassroots must set brush fires of freedom in the minds of men. States have rights, they should not wait on nine unelected lawyers to exercise them.
This article was written by a contributor of Watchdog Arena, Franklin Center’s network of writers, bloggers, and citizen journalists.
Originally posted at Watchdog Arena
