The Koch Brothers have been bankrolling the current challenge to Obama's Affordable Care Act in the Supreme Court. It's outrageous that their attempt to declare Obamacare unconstitutional has gotten this far. Experts say that if the Court decides against the ACA on what perhaps amounts to an infelicitous textual technicality, it could send the Act into a "death spiral" that could eventually deprive tens of millions of people of their health insurance. The result would be 10,000 more people dying per year.
The point of contention turns on the distinction between federal and state subsidies. Legal experts say it is unlikely that the Court will side with the plaintiffs, who scoured the hundreds of pages of the bill to turn up with this mean-spirited ultra-slim "gotcha" point. But these legal minds specialize in foaming over details and avoiding a view of the whole. They seem to ignore the damage their point will do, while making every effort to divert attention from their real agenda, which is to further enrich the hyper-rich Koch Brothers. Fortunately, Justice Anthony Kennedy sees a Constitutional problem in the huge social impact that siding with the plaintiffs would cause. Kennedy, the so-called "swing" vote, has swung rather conservative since his predecessor in that unofficial position, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, left the Court in 2005. His Constitutional interpretations (anti-abortion, Citizens United, anti-ACA) have seemed rather naive and obtuse until now. Could he be waking up?
The outrage is compounded by the success since 2008 of the "too big to fail" and "too big to jail" policies, which has saved the bankster lawbreakers, whose shenanigans caused a world-wide economic crash, from being held accountable. Just imagine if a hundredth of the legal assiduousness spent on trying to destroy Obamacare was turned to financial law to prosecute the likes of Jamey Diamond and Lloyd Blankfein, of Morgan-Chase and Goldman-Sachs respectively. They, their lieutenants, and their cohorts across the industry would be in prison stripes breaking rocks for years.
The point of contention turns on the distinction between federal and state subsidies. Legal experts say it is unlikely that the Court will side with the plaintiffs, who scoured the hundreds of pages of the bill to turn up with this mean-spirited ultra-slim "gotcha" point. But these legal minds specialize in foaming over details and avoiding a view of the whole. They seem to ignore the damage their point will do, while making every effort to divert attention from their real agenda, which is to further enrich the hyper-rich Koch Brothers. Fortunately, Justice Anthony Kennedy sees a Constitutional problem in the huge social impact that siding with the plaintiffs would cause. Kennedy, the so-called "swing" vote, has swung rather conservative since his predecessor in that unofficial position, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, left the Court in 2005. His Constitutional interpretations (anti-abortion, Citizens United, anti-ACA) have seemed rather naive and obtuse until now. Could he be waking up?
The outrage is compounded by the success since 2008 of the "too big to fail" and "too big to jail" policies, which has saved the bankster lawbreakers, whose shenanigans caused a world-wide economic crash, from being held accountable. Just imagine if a hundredth of the legal assiduousness spent on trying to destroy Obamacare was turned to financial law to prosecute the likes of Jamey Diamond and Lloyd Blankfein, of Morgan-Chase and Goldman-Sachs respectively. They, their lieutenants, and their cohorts across the industry would be in prison stripes breaking rocks for years.
