There was a decision today by a Federal District Judge that the funding being used for a major part of Obamacare is unconstitutional. It's a pretty simple issue. The Constitution says that money spent by the federal government has to be authorized and appropriated by Congress, and only Congress. Under Obamacare, there are tax subsidies offered to people who buy individual policies as well as payments made to insurance carriers to reduce the size of deductibles paid by certain lower income individuals. The problem, however, is that when the Democrats passed the law regarding the subsidies to insurance companies, they did not also pass an appropriations bill so that the payments could be made.
This is a very obvious mistake that the Obamacrats made when the bill was passed. All the people in Congress and the Senate understood full well that expenditures by the federal government can only be made after an appropriations bill is passed. Since none of them bothered to read the Obamacare bill, however, they missed the fact that it included no appropriation.
There's a simple way to remedy this problem. Congress just has to pass an appropriations bill. Of course, that would require Obama to work with the GOP majority in Congress to get this done. simply put, it would require Obama to negotiate with the Republicans so that they would vote for funding for subsidies to the insurance companies. Obama won't do that. Indeed, Obama won't change so much as a comma in the Obamacare law.
It will be interesting to see what happens as this dispute moves forward. The judge's decision seems clearly correct, although we will have to wait to see what convoluted arguments will get presented to the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court (if it gets that far.) A rational president would ask Congress to appropriate the money and negotiate some acceptable deal. Sadly, we have Obama rather than a rational president.
This is a very obvious mistake that the Obamacrats made when the bill was passed. All the people in Congress and the Senate understood full well that expenditures by the federal government can only be made after an appropriations bill is passed. Since none of them bothered to read the Obamacare bill, however, they missed the fact that it included no appropriation.
There's a simple way to remedy this problem. Congress just has to pass an appropriations bill. Of course, that would require Obama to work with the GOP majority in Congress to get this done. simply put, it would require Obama to negotiate with the Republicans so that they would vote for funding for subsidies to the insurance companies. Obama won't do that. Indeed, Obama won't change so much as a comma in the Obamacare law.
It will be interesting to see what happens as this dispute moves forward. The judge's decision seems clearly correct, although we will have to wait to see what convoluted arguments will get presented to the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court (if it gets that far.) A rational president would ask Congress to appropriate the money and negotiate some acceptable deal. Sadly, we have Obama rather than a rational president.
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