The Supremes

Lately, I have spent a lot of time thinking about the Supremes… Not Diana, Mary and Flo, but Alito, Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy, and Roberts. Especially Roberts. I know that there are nine of them, but these five are the ones that have been constantly creeping into my thoughts. These are the REPUBLICAN judges, appointed by Republican presidents. They are the Red States of the Supreme Court. Some are redder than others. Scalia, Thomas, and Alito might as well be Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina. Democrats have no chance there. Kennedy could be Georgia, a Democrat can dream there. Roberts is Virginia, the big maybe.

The Supremes recently agreed to hear a case called “King v. Burwell”. If you haven’t heard about it, you will. The case is the latest Republican challenge to the Affordable Care Act, and it has the potential to destroy it. It takes four votes for the Supremes to agree to take a case. We will never know how many voted to take this one, but there is no doubt that at least four of the names mentioned above voted in the affirmative.

Basically, the case comes down to this. The Affordable Care Act is designed to make insurance available for everyone. This is done by making Federal Income tax subsidies available to people that can’t afford the policies that are sold on the individual state insurance exchanges or markets that are set up on-line. So, if you can't afford it, the federal government gives you money to help you pay for it. Because of these subsidies, no one has to pay more than 8% of their income for health insurance. Since everyone can now afford to buy health insurance, the government can assess a penalty to those that refuse to buy. This maximizes participation and keeps prices down.

One section of the law states that if a state refuses to set up its own insurance marketplace the federal government can set one up for them. Twenty nine states with Republican governors refused to set up insurance exchanges. So the people in those states use the federal exchange.

Another section of the law makes the subsidies available to people that buy insurance from an exchange “established by the state”. It makes no mention of an exchange established by the federal government if the state refused to do it.

That’s what “King v. Burwell” is all about. The plaintiff is saying that the people in those 29 states can’t receive any assistance to buy health insurance because their state’s exchange was established by the federal government and not “the state”.

Close your mouth. Don’t laugh. The Republicans already have four votes. They only need one more.

John Roberts, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America is the wild card. He will be the decider. He will decide if the 10 million people that have insurance now, (that did not have it before the ACA was implemented), and the millions more that will sign up for it in the coming months will have it taken from them. Virginia was once the capital state of the Confederacy, but Virginia also elected the nation’s first Black governor, and gave its Electoral College votes to Barack Obama, twice. Virginia can be persuaded to do the right thing. This is the second time the Affordable Care Act has had a major challenge in the Supreme Court. It was John Roberts that cast the deciding vote to save the law then. Will he have the courage to do the right thing again?

During his confirmation hearing Roberts was asked if he would be influenced by his ideological persuasions while serving on the court. He replied that he would simply “call balls and strikes”. I doubt if any umpire has ever faced the kind of pressure he is about to face. The intensity of the hatred of President Obama and all he has accomplished by many people in our country defies description. The power and influence at their disposal is formidable. All of it will be focused on one man. He alone will be able to give them the ultimate victory or a final defeat.

Imagine being the umpire at Yankee Stadium. It is the seventh game of the World Series, bottom of the ninth inning. The Yankees are losing 2 to 1. The bases are loaded. The count is 3 balls, 2 strikes, and Derek Jeter, the beloved Yankee captain is batting. The entire city of New York is screaming. People all over the world are watching with bated breath.

Here’s the pitch… It’s high and outside, but is it a ball…..or a strike?