Just got off the phone with Sherry Jacobson at The Dallas Morning News. She was calling for a reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision in King v. Burwell today. She calls me from time to time since our original interview when I was helping folks get signed up. (Oh, and here is the DMN editorial board’s begrudging positive response to today’s decision.)
“Similarly, Democrats could stop pretending all is well with the law and quit refusing to open the door to fix-it negotiations, as they have since 2010.”
Um, wut?
Basically, we stood still today. Which is a whole lot better than taking two steps back. Yes, I’m glad I didn’t lose my $86 subsidy today. The premium and the deductible are still too damn high. There are still too many folks falling in to the gap between Medicaid and eligibility for subsidies. Dealing with BlueCrossBlueShield is still a life-sucking black hole of despair. Gilded pamper palaces of healthcare for the rich continue popping up all over town. There’s a medical testing clinic in every strip mall and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have to do much to get myself a sweet Hoveround.
But all the good stuff would have been completely jeopardized if today’s decision had gone the other way. And there is plenty of good stuff. We can lean in from here and take steps toward expanded Medicaid and eventual Medicare for all!
Here’s a roundup of responses pinging around the intertoobs today.
President Obama’s Victory Lap
- “Words no longer have meaning” and more Scalia ArgleBargle.
- Trudy Lieberman writes critically in Harper’s about how shifting costs are calling in to question the “affordable” part. It’s paywalled, but you can hear an interview with Lieberman on Sam Seder’s Majority Report. Seder has been obsessed with King v. Burwell for months. Here’s an interview with Yale Law School Professor Abbe Gluck to explain why it was so absurd in the first place.
- And in Wonkette’s inimitable style, a ‘splainer and a roundup of the response from the GOP candidate clown car.
“The highest court of unelected activist judges in the whole Us of America declared, for the second time, that Obamacare haters need to hush now and take a nap because that shit is kosher, yo. Which does not mean the Republican Party or any of its “presidential” “candidates” are going to do that. The Affordable Care Act may be the super-duper twice-certified constitutional law of the land, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be repealed and replaced with something even MORE better, dunno what yet, that’s not what matters right now!”
- Business news columnist slams Abbott’s misquided attempt to “end Obamacare” in Texas.
- More to come . . .
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