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发帖数: 29846 | 1 Huge Legal Victory For The Constitution Over Obamacare (But Will Ruling Lead
To Single-Payer?)
by Jeff Dunetz | May 12, 2016 | U.S. News
In a major victory for the Constitution and for House Republicans, a federal
judge ruled that the Obama administration didn’t fund Obamacare’s
subsidies properly.
A lawsuit by house Republicans claimed that the Obama Administration was
distributing money to health insurance companies that hadn’t allocated by
congress. Today U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer agreed, ordering
the administration to stop doling out the Affordable Care Act’s “cost-
sharing” payments to insurers until it gets an appropriation from Congress.
Judge Collyer then stayed her ruling pending appeal.
The cost-sharing program reimburses insurers who have reduced co-pays
and deductibles for qualified Obamacare enrollees as a condition of
participating in the state-based health care exchanges.
GOP lawmakers say Congress never authorized spending for the program,
and indeed zeroed out funding for it, so Mr. Obama was breaking the law.
Constitutionally congress, specifically the House of Representatives has the
power of the purse therefore if the the money is not authorized the
executive is not supposed spend it. However, the administration claims that
the cost-sharing” payments are a permanent appropriation like the subsidies
which go directly to the low income families that purchase Obamacare.
Judge Collyer ruled that an appropriation for the cost-sharing program “
cannot be inferred.”
“Authorization and appropriation by Congress are nonnegotiable
prerequisites to government spending,” she wrote.
If the ruling holds, this could result in a serious blow to the government
takeover of the U.S. healthcare system. Already it looks as if consumers
will be hit with high increases for their Obamacare plans beginning in
October. With the loss of the subsidies insurance companies will be forced
to increase their rates even higher, or drop out of Obamacare all together (
like United Healthcare has already announced).
In the end this will lead to another healthcare battle in congress with the
conservatives looking to replace Obamacare with a free-market alternative,
and President Obama, Hillary Clinton and the other statists fighting for
what they’ve always wanted, a single payer healthcare system which will
increase the government’s control over your medical decisions. |
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