An observation specifically about the writing of the Obamacare Law:
…So that’s what happened: in between the “conceptual language” and the actual legislative text, some experts who were writing the law thought it was a good idea to try to coerce states into creating their own exchanges by withholding tax subsidies from the federal exchanges. The actual legislators who voted on the legislation didn’t know how the law would work, but they trusted the experts they hired….
…Tom Carper (D-Delaware), who also served on the Senate Finance Committee,insisted that the legislative language wasn’t important:
“I don’t expect to actually read the legislative language, because reading the legislative language is among the more confusing things I’ve ever read in my life.”
So, the Senate Finance Committee voted on “conceptual language” that established subsidies for exchanges without mentioning who those subsidies would apply to. They then hired experts, as Baucus said, who did intend for subsidies not to apply to federal exchanges, and those experts plainly wrote the law in the way that it wouldn’t apply to federal exchanges. Democratic leadership then refused to post the legislative text for people to read in an adequate time period before passing the law, and as a result, Congress voted on legislation that was written by people who, yes, intended for tax subsidies only to apply to state-established exchanges…
But that’s NOT the main problem.


