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Scalia called Obamacare ‘SCOTUScare’ and warned it might endure — and he was right

Scalia called Obamacare ‘SCOTUScare’ and warned it might endure — and he was right

The seemingly irreversible legacy of dependence on government for health care – enabled by the Roberts Court

With the House having passed a healthcare bill, and the Senate close to passing a version, there is a lot of debate over the specifics of the bills.

Shameless Democrats like Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders portray Republicans as setting out to kill tens of thousands of Americans. In the wake of the shooting of Republican Congressmen by a Sanders-supporter spouting similar talking points, the false death claims are nothing short of incitement to violence.

Republican politicians are falling all over themselves to portray the bills as repeal and replace, but the Republican effort more fairly is an attempt to alter Obamacare. The law has had almost 7 years to work its way into the fabric of the economy and health care system and to expand its reach. Understanding how politically painful true repeal will be, Republicans are shying away, as Yuval Levin correctly assesses in National Review:

The case for repeal was strongest in the three or four years between the enactment and implementation of Obamacare. As more time passes since the beginning of implementation three and a half years ago, and more people’s lives become intertwined with the program for good and bad, the case for addressing Obamacare’s immense deficiencies by repeal weakens as a practical matter in favor of a case for taking them on by alteration.

The essence of Obamacare, that government has to provide healthcare for all and that all have right to look first and foremost to government for healthcare, is so deeply entrenched at this point, that Republicans don’t have the stomach to unwind that paradigm.

It didn’t need to be this way.

When I think about how we got to this point, I think of the Supreme Court decision in June 2012 upholding Obamacare’s mandate penalty against constitutional challenges focused on the commerce clause — the argument that the federal government had no power to regulate the failure to engage in commerce (i.e., not buying an insurance policy), and the corollary that government could not force individuals to engage in commerce (i.e. to buy a policy).

That was a winning argument, ultimately. The Supreme Court (5-4) held that the Obamacare mandate was not constitutional under the Commerce Clause.

But then Chief Justice Roberts salvaged the law by siding with the liberal block of four Justices in finding Obamacare’s mandate penalty was authorized under Congress’ taxing power. It was an outrageous holding, one correctly excoriated by the four dissenters:

For all these reasons, to say that the Individual Mandate merely imposes a tax is not to interpret the statute but to rewrite it…

Imposing a tax through judicial legislation inverts the constitutional scheme, and places the power to tax in the branch of government least accountable to the citizenry….

What the Government would have us believe in these cases is that the very same textual indications that show this is not a tax under the Anti-Injunction Act show that it is a tax under the Constitution. That carries verbal wizardry too far, deep into the forbidden land of the sophists….

The Court today decides to save a statute Congress did not write. It rules that what the statute declares to be a requirement with a penalty is instead an option subject to a tax….

The Court regards its strained statutory interpretation as judicial modesty. It is not. It amounts instead to a vast judicial overreaching. It creates a debilitated, inoperable version of health-care regulation that Congress did not enact and the public does not expect. It makes enactment of sensible health-care regulation more difficult, since Congress cannot start afresh but must take as its point of departure a jumble of now senseless provisions,

The values that should have determined our course today are caution, minimalism, and the understanding that the Federal Government is one of limited powers. But the Court’s ruling undermines those values at every turn. In the name of restraint, it overreaches. In the name of constitutional avoidance, it creates new constitutional questions. In the name of cooperative federalism, it undermines state sovereignty…

The fragmentation of power produced by the structure of our Government is central to liberty, and when we destroy it, we place liberty at peril. Today’s decision should have vindicated, should have taught, this truth; instead, our judgment today has disregarded it.

There were commenters, including conservative commenters, who saw a silver lining in the Supreme Court’s ruling. I disagreed, and saw that the law, once entrenched, likely never would be repealed, Stop the self-delusion (June 28, 2012):

Some well-meaning people are peddling the notion that today’s Obamacare decision was a long term victory, that we lost the battle but won the war, that there was some master plan by Chief Justice Roberts to gut the expansion of Commerce Clause power under the fig leaf of a majority ruling upholding the mandate under Congress’s taxing power….

If this were some other more narrow law, if this was not a monumental takeover of the most private aspects of our lives, if this monstrosity would not cause such long term damage to our health care system, if this law was not Obamacare ….

I might be inclined to agree with you.

But it is Obamacare, it is the takeover of a substantial portion of our economy which empowers the federal government to write tens of thousands of pages of regulations telling us how to live and how to die.

This was the hill to fight on for any conservative Justice of the Supreme Court….

We live to fight another day, but don’t tell me we won because someday possibly in the future in some other case with some other set of Justices we maybe might achieve some doctrinal benefit from the Commerce Clause ruling.

So please don’t delude yourselves.  Today was a bitter loss because it was one we should have won.

Mark Levin saw the decision for the disaster it was:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTuczm7f39k

We lost in the Supreme Court again in 2015 on the issue of whether subsidies were available on federal exchanges.

This time it was a 6-3 decision with Roberts again leading the way in what the dissent again correctly noted was rewriting the law. Scalia’s dissent, joined by Thomas and Alito, was stinging, and in my opinion correct as to the absurdity of the Court contorting itself to save the law (as Roberts did in the original Obamacare challenge):

The Court holds that when the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act says “Exchange established by the State” it means “Exchange established by the State or the Federal Government.” That is of course quite absurd, and the Court’s 21 pages of explanation make it no less so. [at 1]

Scalia pointed out that the words have a plain meaning:

This case requires us to decide whether someone who buys insurance on an Exchange established by the Secretary gets tax credits. You would think the answer would be obvious—so obvious there would hardly be a need for the Supreme Court to hear a case about it. In order to receive any money under §36B, an individual must enroll in an insurance plan through an “Exchange established by the State.” The Secretary of Health and Human Services is not a State. So an Exchange established by the Secretary is not an Exchange established by the State—which means people who buy health insurance through such an Exchange get no money under §36B.

Words no longer have meaning if an Exchange that is not established by a State is “established by the State.” …. [at 2, italics in original]

Scalia argued — persuasively — that the overriding goal seems to be saving Obamacare, not exercising normal judicial interpretation of plain language:

“[T]he plain, obvious, and rational meaning of a statute is always to be preferred to any curious, narrow, hidden sense that nothing but the exigency of a hard case and the ingenuity and study of an acute and powerful intellect would discover.” Lynch v. Alworth-Stephens Co., 267 U. S. 364, 370 (1925) (internal quotation marks omitted). Under all the usual rules of interpretation, in short, the Government should lose this case. But normal rules of interpretation seem always to yield to the overriding principle of the present Court: The Affordable Care Act must be saved. [at 2-3]

Scalia wrote that the majority opinion rewrote the law “with no semblance of shame”:

The Court interprets §36B to award tax credits on both federal and state Exchanges. It accepts that the “most natural sense” of the phrase “Exchange established by the State” is an Exchange established by a State. Ante, at 11. (Understatement, thy name is an opinion on the Affordable Care Act!) Yet the opinion continues, with no semblance of shame, that “it is also possible that the phrase refers to all Exchanges—both State and Federal.” Ante, at 13. (Impossible possibility, thy name is an opinion on the Affordable Care Act!) [at 3]

Looking back over multiple decisions from the Court to rewrite Obamacare in order to save it, Scalia insisted that the law now should be called SCOTUScare:

Today’s opinion changes the usual rules of statutory interpretation for the sake of the Affordable Care Act. That, alas, is not a novelty. In National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, 567 U. S. ___, this Court revised major components of the statute in order to save them from unconstitutionality. The Act that Congress passed provides that every individual “shall” maintain insurance or else pay a “penalty.” 26 U. S. C. §5000A. This Court, however, saw that the Commerce Clause does not authorize a federal mandate to buy health insurance. So it rewrote the mandate-cum-penalty as a tax. 567 U. S., at ___–___ (principal opinion) (slip op., at 15–45).

The Act that Congress passed also requires every State to accept an expansion of its Medicaid program, or else risk losing all Medicaid funding. 42 U. S. C. §1396c. This Court, however, saw that the Spending Clause does not authorize this coercive condition. So it rewrote the law to withhold only the incremental funds associated with the Medicaid expansion. 567 U. S., at ___–___ (principal opinion) (slip op., at 45–58). Having transformed two major parts of the law, the Court today has turned its attention to a third. The Act that Congress passed makes tax credits available only on an “Exchange established by the State.” This Court, however, concludes that this limitation would prevent the rest of the Act from working as well as hoped. So it rewrites the law to make tax credits available everywhere.

We should start calling this law SCOTUScare. [at 20-21, emphasis and hard paragraph breaks added.]

The legacy of this Court, Scalia wrote, will live on just as Obamacare, but in infamy:

Perhaps the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will attain the enduring status of the Social Security Act or the Taft-Hartley Act; perhaps not. But this Court’s two decisions on the Act will surely be remembered through the years. The somersaults of statutory interpretation they have performed (“penalty” means tax, “further [Medicaid] payments to the State” means only incremental Medicaid payments to the State, “established by the State” means not established by the State) will be cited by litigants endlessly, to the confusion of honest jurisprudence. And the cases will publish forever the discouraging truth that the Supreme Court of the United States favors some laws over others, and is prepared to do whatever it takes to uphold and assist its favorites.

I dissent.

Because Obamacare is so entrenched, we’re left to an alteration strategy.

For old time sake, can we at least sometimes refer to it as a SCOTUScare alteration?

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Comments

First, I suggest “Shameless Democrats like Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders,” should read, “Corrupt, shameless Democrats like Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders…”

Second, Obamacare is easy to repeal: Congress simply repeals it. Excuses are b.s. The left’s reaction is b.s. But ultimately, the GOPe is b.s.

In 2016, we blew off the GOPe and put Trump in office to repeal obamacare. He’s likely going to do it, once we ALL assist in the removal of GOPe rats from leadership positions of Congress.

THAT is job #1.

Job 2 is to forever memorialize what a pathetic, coward John Roberts is, by putting his name on a list next to boehner’s.

    “He’s likely going to do it.”

    No he’s not.

    Seriously, show me an example where anything he has said or done since the campaign would make someone believe that?

    He called the bill mean because it wasn’t enough of an entitlement.

    Notice that the people who are telling me now that Obamacare cannot be repealed are the same people who were telling me, last fall, that Trump would never be president.

      Henry Hawkins in reply to rdmdawg. | June 25, 2017 at 9:00 pm

      Trump campaigned on being an outsider. He knew full well he’d be opposed by the Democrats, the media, and a majority of his own party, i.e., the GOPe. He was asked about it repeatedly during the campaign and routinely brought it up himself on dozens, if not hundreds of occasions. He assured us over and over that he would defeat them and “drain the swamp”. His constant assurances that he could handle the Democrats, media, and the GOPe often segued into his “drain the swamp” promise, his promises to repeal Obamacare, and his promises we’d see so much winning we’d get sick of it.

      For Trump or any of his supporters to now explain or excuse his administration’s repeal of Obamacare failures to date* based on Democrat, media, or GOPe opposition is a NO-GO. Trump promised repeatedly he could handle all the opposition he is currently facing. It was his core and primary feature – the outsider who could defeat the Dems, media, and GOPe.

      *I realize that only so much can be expected of any administration just six months into its first term.

        Henry Hawkins in reply to Henry Hawkins. | June 25, 2017 at 9:02 pm

        I have no idea how my above post went up as a reply to rdmdawg’s post. It was meant to be a stand alone post at the bottom of the string. Curiouser and curiouser. I’ve been hacked by the Russkies, maybe.

    artichoke in reply to TheFineReport.com. | June 26, 2017 at 8:36 am

    I think Trump is trying to save it. He’s supporting expensive big-government solutions that would make it a Republican problem, fully legal and consistent. The only good thing he’s doing is refusing to continue the illegal subsidies to Obamacare as it is. Trump is trying to cure Obamacare’s weakness so we’ll never be rid of it, and beyond that he doesn’t seem to care if it’s a bigger or smaller plan.

    I say we pass nothing, let it blow up, then reconsider from a different baseline. The baseline should be that plans without coverage for preexisting conditions can be sold too.

    Without knowing how much HIV patients are costing us, we’ll never rationalize things. But Obamacare was designed to prevent us from knowing that.

I find it high-larry-ous that anyone here would be so deluded as to not know that this “alteration” will be T-rumpCare, up, down, and through the middle.

Seems that Hawkins, AmyFromFlorida, and I all predicted this about two years ago. Because we listened to T-rump…

    Zachary in reply to Ragspierre. | June 25, 2017 at 8:00 pm

    But we should take him seriously, not literally. Stop parsing his words, Rags.

    Prepare for the downvote brigade.

    Mac45 in reply to Ragspierre. | June 25, 2017 at 8:29 pm

    Give it a rest, Rags. So far, Trump has done just about all that he can do to eliminate and change Obamacare. But, he is one man standing alone surrounded by hostiles waiting to be overrun. He has NO support in Establishment Washington. And, no elected official, and most of Trump’s professional political advisers, can afford to repeal the ACA. The political fallout from 20-50 million voters losing their current medical care insurance would simply hand the Congress back to the Democrats and cement Obamacare into our culture, until it collapses in 15 years. So, no repeal. Amending the ACA will be limited to things like business mandates, the personal mandate, requiring employer coverage and mandated levels of coverage. All things which will positively affect business and encourage economic growth.

    Unless the voters put enormous pressure on elected politicians to repeal the ACA, it will not happen until the government steps in and takes total control of the healthcare insurance industry and, therefor, healthcare itself. And, that will make Obamacare look like nothing. Our Congressmen are all professional, lifetime politicians and their only goal is to stay in office as long as they can. And, relieving millions of people of their healthcare insurance, in the current climate of overwhelming healthcare costs, is not going to benefit them.

      Ragspierre in reply to Mac45. | June 25, 2017 at 9:05 pm

      Just WHAT should I “gave a rest”?

      T-rump promised “repeal”. You swallowed that BS.

      I NEVER have. Not from him. Not from Mr. “We can’t have people dying in the streets”. (We NEVER have, btw.)

      Remember that. I do. I listened to the man, and knew him to be the liar he was, is, and will be tomorrow.

      If you want someone here to “give it a rest”, you should direct your comments to the delusional fan bois of the T-rumpian cult.

        From the delusional fan bois of the T-rumpian cult:

        Donald Trump achievements:
        http://www.conservapedia.com/Donald_Trump_achievements

        Ragspierre in reply to Ragspierre. | June 25, 2017 at 9:37 pm

        Yep. You apparently have totally abandoned the ability to read and recognize outright BULLSHIT.

        As expected…. Fan boi.

        So vote for Hildebeeste again.

        Mac45 in reply to Ragspierre. | June 25, 2017 at 10:09 pm

        I can’t believe that you are TOTALLY ignorant of how the Government of the United States works, so i have to assume that you think that the rest of us are all SOOO ignorant that we will not see your comments as being aa totally futile attempt to discredit Trump. Personally, I NEVER expected Trump to be able to repeal Obamacare. I expected him to be able to do exactly what he did, which was to repeal executive orders and change government directives as allowed under the existing statute. This he has done a lot of. I’m the one who keeps telling people that Obamacare is almost assuredly here to stay, until Congress establishes a government funded single payer healthcare insurance program.

        The GOP tried to repeal Obamacare TWICE and failed, even when it controlled Congress. Now, we all know that the GOP had NO desire to repeal the ACA, but they passed legislation so that they could say that they tried, knowing full well that Obama would veto it and that they did not have the votes necessary to overturn the veto. So, why not simply introduce the bills that Obama vetoed, pass them and let Trump sign them into law? I think that we can all agree that the only reason that they have not done this is because they DO NOT WANT TO REPEAL OBAMACARE. And, as long as the Congress refuses to repeal Obamacare, there is no way that Trump can do it unilaterally. Right? You understand that, right?

        So, please give the adults on the forum a break and present adult criticisms, not juvenile ones.

          Ragspierre in reply to Mac45. | June 25, 2017 at 10:14 pm

          “Personally, I NEVER expected Trump to be able to repeal Obamacare.”

          Ergo, you voted for a known liar. Well, your choice…

        Ragspierre in reply to Ragspierre. | June 25, 2017 at 10:12 pm

        As you know, you lying POS, I never voted for either lying, pathological, narcissistic Progressive thug.

        Your just NEEEEEEEEEEEEED to lie. Like your Great Goad Cheeto…

          VaGentleman in reply to Ragspierre. | June 26, 2017 at 8:51 am

          ‘I won’t vote for any collectivist…’. Well, you should have. Let’s just face facts – you should have. That’s what adults do. We give 5 yr olds hard rules because it’s what they can understand. Their brains aren’t physically fully grown and they lack knowledge and experience to make adult decisions. Adults (should) recognize that the hard rules don’t apply to all decisions. I believe the legal system recognizes the need as exigent circumstances and the law of competing harms. Sometimes you have to choose the better of 2 imperfect cases. Nov 8 was clearly one of those times. The fact that you gave no thought to the needs of conservativism, but stopped thinking at the needs of the cult of #NT, shows again that you championed the cult, and not conservativism. Cults force you to think like a 5 yr old, and you are proud to do so. The fact that you still can’t answer whether Clinton or Trump was better for conservativism, but fall back on your ‘won’t vote’ line, shows that your true loyalties lie with the cult.

          Ragspierre in reply to Ragspierre. | June 26, 2017 at 8:55 am

          Same OLLLLLLLD crap, different day.

          Have you idiots of the T-rumpian turd-swirl here ever contemplated WHY you work so hard to try to silence me?

          Naw…

          But I know the answer. And I laugh…!!!

          VaGentleman in reply to Ragspierre. | June 26, 2017 at 9:02 am

          >>Same OLLLLLLLD crap, different day.

          What a great description of your posts on LI.

          Have you thought about why you’re so deluded that you think someone is trying to silence you?

          Ragspierre in reply to Ragspierre. | June 26, 2017 at 9:30 am

          Huh…

          If all I publish is the same old crap…

          why do you cultists attack me? Seems like that question answers itself.

          Dunnit…???

      VaGentleman in reply to Mac45. | June 26, 2017 at 8:03 am

      Obamacare repeal only became an issue for rags after Nov 8. On Nov 8 he was willing to let Hillary be elected if only he could defeat Trump. Hillary would NEVER have repealed it, and would have rescued and strengthened it, but she was still rags choice.

        Ragspierre in reply to VaGentleman. | June 26, 2017 at 8:25 am

        Why even TRY to lie like that…???

        ObamaCare has had no more adamant opponent since it was in its formative days.

        And every day after it was “passed”, I’ve militated for its repeal.

        Not only that, I have openly refused to conform to its provisions.

        You simply prove your T-rump Derangement Suckage by such stupid nonsense.

          VaGentleman in reply to Ragspierre. | June 26, 2017 at 8:38 am

          You talked about it, but talk is cheap. You’re all hat and no cattle. Trump has done more to block Obamacare than you ever have, and far more than Clinton ever would have done had you managed to defeat Trump and get her elected. When the time came for action, you had such a commitment to conservativism that you voted PRESENT! Impressive – NOT!

          Ragspierre in reply to Ragspierre. | June 26, 2017 at 8:45 am

          Same old trite, lying BS. What an idiot.

          Der Donald WILL sign T-rumpCare. Bank on it.

          Dupe.

    Barry in reply to Ragspierre. | June 26, 2017 at 4:45 am

    “Because we listened to T-rump…”

    LOL, you listen only to the voice in your head or the nevertrum choir section.

gop pos cowards been promising to repeal since before the 2010 elections. we’ve given them plenty of time and votes to do so.
at this point the only option I see is watering the tree.
and its their own damn fault it came to this.
and my maine senators are mostly to blame for it.
thats why one refused to run again and we got angus “i love me windmill subsidies” king there

Either Trump can manage Republicans to address the progressive cost of medical products and services, or we are on a progressive path to national socialism including: [class] diversity, abortion chambers, redistributive change, and probably elective wars (e.g. Somalia, Libya, Ukraine, South Africa, Serbia, etc.), too.

Well, cost, but also education and moral reform. The education product is uniquely expensive and underperforming. The established Pro-Choice Church denies human dignity and science, and promotes institutional racism, sexism, and congruence (“=”), and clinger to a twilight faith (e.g. spontaneous human conception a.k.a. viability).

[Yuval[Levin believes, as I do, that “the cause of good policy (almost regardless of your priorities in health care) would be better served by a repeal and replacement, with appropriate transition measures, than by [the] sort of tinkering” proposed by both the Senate and the House. Repeal and replace would provide “more coverage, a better health-financing system, and a more appropriate role for government.”
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/06/the-senate-health-care-bill-yuval-levins-take.php

Levin and Mirengoff are not guys who advocate vacant or impossible positions.

Repeal IS possible.

Prediction; T-rump will sign T-rumpCare into law.

Make no mistake about it. This health care bill, which keeps the most insolvent aspects of Obamacare while pretending to repeal them, is now Trump’s bill. The president controls the direction of major legislation when his party runs Congress, and in this case, Trump has fully embraced whatever steaming pile Ryan and McConnell send to his desk. Much like No Child Left Behind belonged to President Bush, not John Boehner (the sponsor of the bill), the health care bill is Trumpcare, not merely Ryancare/McConnellcare. It’s time for Trump voters to hold the president accountable for violating a monumental campaign promise and for attacking those who are actually working to uphold his promise.

-snip- (and I’m looking at you, Mac45)

Some defenders of the president are matter-of-factly telling us we shouldn’t have expected more from him. After all, he has always praised single-payer health care. But that is not what he ran on, and that is certainly not what his voters anticipated when they cast ballots for him in the primaries and in the general election. During the campaign, Trump submitted a blueprint that contains many of the reforms on our top 20 wish list. However, he made it clear that everything begins with full repeal of Obamacare:

But none of these positive reforms can be accomplished without Obamacare repeal. On day one of the Trump Administration, we will ask Congress to immediately deliver a full repeal of Obamacare.

On his campaign website issue-position statements, Trump made it clear that full repeal coupled with expanded HSAs and high-risk pools are the way to deal with the chronically ill, not fully maintaining the Obamacare exchanges, regulations, and subsidies.
https://www.conservativereview.com/articles/how-soon-we-forget-this-is-the-health-care-trump-really-promised

I just deal in objective facts. Like what people promise.

    heyjoojoo in reply to Ragspierre. | June 26, 2017 at 10:26 am

    No objectivity here at all. Just wait and watch the theater. I’m loving the show. Trump is playing those chess pieces like nobody’s business. Independence Day is right around the corner. 😛

    Mac45 in reply to Ragspierre. | June 26, 2017 at 12:39 pm

    Rags, buddy, of course anything that Trump supports is going to be Trumpcare. That is REALITY. The further reality is that it is political suicide for Republican Congressmen to REPEAL the ACA. Repeal would involve eliminating a large portion of the government funded healthcare insurance in this country. And for those who are not up to speed, that means that some people are going to lose their healthcare insurance. So, there is NO WAY that Republican Congressmen are going to vote for repeal. If the government funding aspects of Obamacare are retained or replaced, this solves NOTHING in the long run. Everyone on the same page here?

    So, rags, what we have is a Presidential candidate who promised repeal and replacement of the ACA, something that the Republican Congress had already attempted to do by passing bills which were vetoed by Obama. And, once elected, Trump used all of his options to repeal the portions of ACA over which he had unilateral control. It is the Republican Congress which is refusing to attempt repeal. It is the Republican Congress which has been lying to the American people. It might be nice if you could see past your irrational revulsion of Trump to the fact that the GOP members of Congress are the ones who are dead set against repealing Obamacare. And, the reason for that is because to do so would be political suicide.

      Henry Hawkins in reply to Mac45. | June 26, 2017 at 2:08 pm

      Throughout the campaign Trump repeatedly voiced awareness that the GOPe would oppose him on repealing Obamacare, despite their own promises to do so, which no one believed anymore. And of course, he’d face opposition from the Dems and the media. Trump assured us repeatedly that he could handle the opposition and defeat them. So far, albeit just six months in, it appears he cannot handle the opposition on repealing Obamacare. Per Trump’s own words and promises, repeated constantly throughout the campaign, he swore he was the outsider who could and would drain the swamp, repeal Obamacare, build the wall, etc.

      To explain/excuse his failures to do so by pointing out he’s facing political opposition is very weak apologia.

        “To explain/excuse his failures to do so by pointing out he’s facing political opposition is very weak apologia.”

        No apology here at all. Simply a statement of fact.

        Perhaps Trump really believed that his “mandate” from the people would force the Republican members of Congress to follow his lead. If so, this was a gross mistake, but one shared by the majority of his followers. In both cases it can be explained by naivete where politics are concerned. On the other hand, Trump could have been running a typical political campaign and said things that he knew his potential base wanted to hear regardless of their accuracy. Either is possible and both are easily explained. However, since his inauguration, Trump has taken significant steps to repeal portions of the ACA as well as many, if not most, of the regulations which ACA spawned. What he could do unilaterally, he has done. Anything else has to be done by the Republicans in the Congress. And, they ain’t doin’ nothin’.

        Now, the lack of action by Congress is not surprising. Throughout the campaign, pundits and analysts warned that unless there was a significant change in the membership of the Congress, then Trump would very likely get nothing done legislatively. And SURPRISE, this has turned out to be true. Now, what other candidate could get the ACA repealed? Bush, Cruz, Kasich? That’s right, none of them could get the ACA repealed because the Republican Congress does not want it to be repealed. But, this reality does not stop the anti-Trumpers from seizing on Trump saying that they were going to repeal Obamacare. And, they ignore what Trump did to repeal the portions of the ACA and its regulations which he could do without Congress. By my analysis, short of blackmailing the Republican members of Congress, there is NO way to get them to do any meaningful repeal or replacement of Obamacare. In order to make meaningful changes in the ACA, Congress has to significantly reduce or eliminate federal funding for healthcare insurance. This would mean that some people would lose their insurance, even if they wished to keep it. Given the cost of medical treatment in the US, no insurance means no treatment. And, that is political suicide. Congressmen are not going to do that. So, no matter who is in the WH, Congress is not going to change the ACA in any meaningful way. They will just kick the problem down the road past the 2018 midterms, the 2020 general and keep kicking it until the healthcare system collapses and then they will save it by imposing a government funded healthcare insurance system, a la Medicare.