“The GOP Gang Of Supremes Go After Obamacare”: This Lawsuit Was A Fraud From The Get-Go
Look out — the Supreme Court’s black-robed gang of far-right ideologues is rampaging again! The five-man clan is firing potshots at Obamacare — and their political recklessness endangers justice, the Court’s own integrity, and the health of millions of innocent bystanders.
In an attempt to override the law, these so-called “justices” have jumped on a wagonload of legalistic BS named King v. Burwell. But that case is a very rickety legal vehicle. It sprang from a frivolous lawsuit concocted in 2010 by a right-wing front group funded by such self-serving oligarchs as the Koch brothers, Big Oil, Big Tobacco and Big Pharma. The chairman of the front group was neither delicate nor discreet in describing the purpose of the lawsuit as a raw political assault on Obamacare: “This bastard has to be killed as a matter of political hygiene,” he howled at the time. “I do not care how this is done, whether it’s dismembered, whether we drive a stake through its heart … I don’t care who does it, whether it’s some court someplace or the United States Congress.”
So much for the intellectual depth of the King case, which was fabricated on a twisted interpretation of only four words in the 906-page health care law. The plaintiffs claim that the law prohibits insurance subsidies to the millions of low- and middle-income Americans living in the 36 states that did not set up a state exchange — thus making health care unaffordable to millions of hard-working Americans and small businesses who are purchasing insurance on the federal exchange—essentially nullifying the heart of Obamacare.
Both the district and appeals courts rejected that perverse ideological tommyrot, and even the nation’s largest health care provider called the claim “absurd.” Nonetheless, the gang of Supremes grabbed the case as a chance to wreak their own brand of ideological havoc on a law they personally dislike.
By taking over this case, these Republican judges have openly become partisans, thrusting the Supreme Court itself into the forefront of the GOP’s war against Obamacare — and against Obama himself.
While we know that an anti-government group funded by plutocratic corporate powers is behind the lawsuit intended to terminate Obamacare — who are the four people who are out front as the actual plaintiffs in the case?
The Competitive Enterprise Institute is the corporate front, but it had no standing to sue, so it had to find some actual people who would claim they’ve been harmed by the health care law. Thus, David King, a 64-year-old Vietnam vet, was recruited to be the lead plaintiff in King v. Burwell, which is now in the Supreme Court’s hands. He and three co-plaintiffs were chosen to put sympathetic human faces on what essentially is a right-wing political ploy.
But who are they? An investigative article in Mother Jones magazine by Stephanie Mencimer reveals that King’s modest income as a self-employed limo driver exempts him from Obamacare’s insurance mandate — so he’s been done no harm by the law and, therefore, has no standing to sue. Moreover, as a veteran, he’s entitled to VA care and, in a few months, to Medicare, making him double-covered by public health programs. Mr. King’s main reason for being on CEI’s lawsuit appears to be that he loathes Obama, referring to him as “a joke” and “the idiot in the White House.”
None of the three other recruits seem to have been harmed by Obamacare, either. “I don’t know how I got on this case,” says Brenda Levy, adding that, “I don’t like the idea of throwing people off their health insurance.” Then there’s Rose Luck, whose low income also exempts her from the law’s mandates. But she, too, fiercely loathes Obama. She posted on her Facebook page that she “wouldn’t admit he was our president,” calling him “The anti-Christ” who only won the Oval Office because “he got his Muslim people to vote for him.”
This lawsuit was a fraud from the get-go — and if five Supremes use it to take away the health coverage of some 10 million Americans, they’ll also be exposed as rank political hatchetmen masquerading as “justices.”
By: Jim Hightower, The National Memo, March 4, 2015
“Who Are These People”: ‘I Don’t Like The Idea Of Throwing People Off Their Health Insurance’
When it comes to the insanity surrounding the King v. Burwell case, we already have a pretty good sense of most of the relevant angles. We know who supports the ridiculous case and why, what happens if Republican justices go along with this dangerous nonsense, how many families will suffer and where, etc.
We don’t, however, know much about the specific plaintiffs themselves.
Remember, when challenging a federal law, it’s not enough for someone to get a lawyer, go to court, and demand the law be struck down. In the American system, plaintiffs need standing – litigants have to demonstrate that a law harms them in some direct way.
And so, in the painfully absurd King v. Burwell case, anti-healthcare lawyers went out and found four people willing to sue because they’re eligible under the Affordable Care Act for insurance subsidies. They’ve been largely overlooked, but given the possibility that this case will end access to medical care for millions of families, it seems like a good time to ask, “Who are these people who want to destroy the American health care system?”
Stephanie Mencimer reports today on all four of the plaintiffs, and it’s quite a collection of folks. For example, David King of King v. Burwell notoriety, “brought up Benghazi” when asked about the anti-healthcare lawsuit. Rose Luck believes President Obama may be the “anti-Christ” and was elected by “his Muslim people.” But a Virginia woman Brenda Levy stood out as especially significant.
What was more surprising, though, was that she said she didn’t recall exactly how she had been selected as a plaintiff in the case to begin with. “I don’t know how I got on this case. I haven’t done a single thing legally. I’m gonna have to ask them how they found me,” she told me. She thought lawyers involved with the case may have contacted her at some point and she had decided to “help ‘em out.” […]
When I asked her if she realized that her lawsuit could potentially wipe out health coverage for millions, she looked befuddled. “I don’t want things to be more difficult for people,” she said. “I don’t like the idea of throwing people off their health insurance.”
Her case, whether Levy realizes it or not, exists to throw people off their health insurance.
She added that she intends to go to D.C. for the Supreme Court’s oral arguments “It’s an adventure,” Levy said. “Like going to Paris!”
Complicating matters further, three of the four plaintiffs are finding their standing suddenly facing new scrutiny. The Wall Street Journal reported late Friday that King “appears to qualify for veterans’ medical coverage, raising questions about his ability to challenge the law.”
The plaintiffs have persuaded courts to hear their case on the grounds that the subsidies allegedly harm them by subjecting them to the law’s requirement to carry insurance or pay a penalty. Without the subsidies, insurance would be too expensive for them, they contend, thus making them exempt from having to pay the fine for lacking insurance.
But Mr. King could avoid paying that fine or any insurance premiums because, according to him and his attorneys, he served in the Army in Vietnam. That qualifies him for medical coverage with no premiums through the Department of Veterans Affairs, benefits and legal experts say. In an interview at his home here, Mr. King said he had been to a VA medical center and had a VA identification card, which typically serves as proof of VA-care enrollment.
Legal experts say the fact that Mr. King could avoid paying the penalty for lacking insurance by enrolling in VA coverage undermines his legal right to bring the case, known as “standing.” The wife of a second plaintiff has described her husband on social media as being a Vietnam veteran. The government previously questioned the standing of a third plaintiff on the grounds that her income may exempt her from paying the penalty for lacking insurance, but a lower court didn’t address the issue.
Levy, the one who doesn’t want to throw people off their health insurance despite her role as a plaintiff in this case, will qualify for Medicare this June – which would remove her from the ACA coverage system anyway.
These fresh details reinforce the impression that the entire King v. Burwell case seems like a transparent scam, and as the WSJ added, the standing issues “could create skepticism about the strength of the challengers’ case and highlight the difficulty of finding plaintiffs to show the health law’s subsidies harm Americans.”
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, February 9, 2015
“The Obamacare Plaintiffs And Medicare”: Maybe They’d Love Obamacare If The Hated President’s Name Wasn’t On It
Politico‘s Jennifer Haberkorn scored a bit of a scoop by convincing the chief plantiff in the King v. Burwell litigation, David King, to let her into his Fredericksburg, VA living room, apparently because he didn’t want to leave her shivering on his front doorstep. Most of what she tells about him, though, seems to come from his recent social media expressions rather than from anything he said to her in person:
The man who could cripple Obamacare isn’t shy about telling the world that he thinks the president is an “idiot,” posting altered images of the first lady in Middle Eastern clothing and expressing his hatred for the “Democraps” who enacted the health care law.
Greg Sargent, however, finds something more interesting to examine about King and a couple of his co-plaintiffs:
[I]t’s fascinating that King is less than a year away from qualifying for Medicare. As it happens, Politico reports that two of the other four challengers are 64 and 63, also putting them very close to qualifying. Remember, this lawsuit is all about the plaintiff’s objection to being subjected to the individual mandate’s requirement that they get insurance. The plaintiffs are claiming injury because Virginia is on the federal exchange, which, they say, means they should not be getting the subsidies which are necessary under the law to require them to get insurance under the mandate. Yet three of the challengers are very close to having the mandate canceled for them by Medicare. (One, it should be noted, is 56 years old.)
It would be really interesting to know what these challengers think of Medicare, given their role in a lawsuit that could go a long way towards gutting the coverage guarantee for millions of Americans.
Unfortunately, we cannot answer Greg’s question yet, if ever. Maybe these folk share the not uncommon belief of seniors that Medicare is an “earned benefit” (at most half-true) in contrast to the “welfare” nature of Obamacare (again, at most half-true). Maybe they don’t like Medicare as it is but would like to “reform” it–though the most common Republican proposal for “reform” is to convert Medicare from being a defined government-provided benefit to a means-tested system of public subsidies for private insurance purchases like Obamacare. Maybe they’d love Obamacare if the hated president’s name wasn’t on it. It’s hard to say. But whatever their reasons, they’re willing to force millions of people who aren’t on the brink of qualifying for Medicare into a health care wilderness. No wonder they don’t want to give interviews.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Political Animal, The Washington Monthly, February 6, 2015
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