ObamaCare Stands Strong with Supreme Court Ruling
The Affordable Care Act, which has helped millions of previously uninsured United States citizens get medical coverage, survived a challenge when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that federal subsidies were intended to be utilized by all states, whether they set up a state insurance exchange or relied on the feds to do it for them. The challenge in King v. Burwell, relied on one phrase embedded deeply in the text. That phrase, relating to insurance subsidies that came from “an exchange established by the state,” was the cornerstone of the challenge. Conservatives who brought the lawsuit claimed that meant subsidies could only be given to people in states that had established their own state insurance exchanges. If the suit had prevailed, millions of people would have lost their health insurance in states, like Texas, that refused to create state exchanges. Fortunately, the Supremes, or at least most of them, recognized that the word “state” refers to both individual states and the nation as a whole as a state.
Abbott Promises to Keep Fighting The Affordable Care Act
No sooner had the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in King v. Burwell than Governor Greg Abbot immediately announced that Texas would continue to try to get the ACA repealed. In a press release put out out by the governor, Abbot said “Today the Supreme Court sided with the Obama Administration on ObamaCare subsidies. Now more than ever, we need your help to make sure Texas is a leader in the fight to repeal ObamaCare.”
Abbot then made an appeal for money, then wound up his release with this: “Liberals across the nation thing we should give up the right to repeal—to live with the law that has resulted in skyrocketing costs and lost jobs.”
Abbott is wrong on both “skyrocketing costs” and “lost jobs.” It’s been estimated that if Texas would agree to expand Medicaid, there might be as many as 100,000 new, good paying jobs created in the health care industry in just this state.
U.S. Supreme Court Allows States to Ban Confederate Flag License Plates
In a June 18 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that we missed until today, Texas has been permitted to limit the content of specialty license plates. The Sons of Confederate Veterans “had sought a Texas plate bearing its logo with the battle flag,” according to the AP. Texas had rejected the plate on the grounds that it would offend many Texans.
The ruling basically came down to this: The license plate is the property of the state and the state can have say over what is depicted on it. Bumper stickers are a different story.
Fox and Palin Part Ways/Bristol Pregnant Again
Not to rub it in too deeply, but earlier this month Fox television—we cannot bring ourselves to call it news—and Sarah Palin parted company. We have no doubt she will surface somewhere.
And her daughter Bristol, whose engagement was recently called off, has announced that she is pregnant with her second child. That’s great news for her, but not for all of the teens to whom she preaches “abstinence only” with regards to sex before marriage.
