Remember when John Roberts wrote an opinion saying that giving states some extra money for medical care for their poorest citizens was unconstitutionally coercive? - ThreadSky

figgityfigs.bsky.social • 1 day ago

Remember when John Roberts wrote an opinion saying that giving states some extra money for medical care for their poorest citizens was unconstitutionally coercive?

Reposted from Pwnallthethings

Exciting to find out if it is legal to somehow constructively detain someone in a rube goldberg machine designed so that they cannot file for habeas relief

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samulmschneider.bsky.social•1 day ago

I think it was probably wrong on the merits about coercion, but the reason the Court found the ACA's medicaid payment structure unconstitutionally coercive wasn't the 100% coverage of medicaid expansion costs, but instead the 'stick' of revoking existing medicaid support if a state didn't expand.

figgityfigs.bsky.social•1 day ago

But think about the logic of the other half of the decision. The mandate wasn’t called a tax but it functioned as one so it was permissible. Why not look at Medicaid expansion the same way? They didn’t repeal Medicaid and pass Medicaid+, but it functioned as though they had.

figgityfigs.bsky.social•1 day ago

Congress can certainly repeal a law and pass another law, right? What’s the precedent for saying that states must be able to act in accordance with the repealed law or else it’s not fair?

samulmschneider.bsky.social•1 day ago

But Congress didn't repeal Medicaid, create Medicaid+, the statute was structured p much fully around distinguishing Medicaid expansion from medicaid base coverage, especially in subsidy distribution. The creative reconceptualization of mandate-as-tax doesn't translate bc expansion was seperate.

samulmschneider.bsky.social•1 day ago

I don't want to make mountains out of molehills here, in the context of the seperation decisions I agree with the point - just as disallowing medicaid penalties badly blunted the impact of the ACA and undermined it hugely, so too the emerging removal doctrines undermine basic habeas protections.

figgityfigs.bsky.social•1 day ago

But it wasn’t separate, not really! That’s the whole thing! The law was written so that it was all or nothing. The expansion is the new law, and if you don’t accept its terms you don’t get Medicaid. The Supreme Court made up the distinction that the states needed to be able to accept status quo ante

yohannanx.bsky.social•1 day ago

Saying “you’ve got to repeal the whole program if you ever want to make a change” is an incredibly stupid argument, but is the logical implication of the Roberts opinion.

socio-steve.bsky.social•1 day ago

The Medicaid gap is a direct result of this. They didn't make the marketplace available to people under 100% of the FPL because the marketplace was designed to work with the newly restructured Medicaid.

socio-steve.bsky.social•1 day ago

What actually happened if you believe the tick-tock is that Roberts and the conservatives were poised to rule the individual mandate unconstitutional. The liberal justices convinced them that that would collapse the ACA (which was the wonk belief at the time) so they negotiated...

socio-steve.bsky.social•1 day ago

The conservatives had to find something unconstitutional for political reasons obviously so they settled on the Medicaid expansion. Only obviously it turns out the expansion was far more important than initially thought. regardless that is it...there is no principal at work here. Just politics.

figgityfigs.bsky.social•1 day ago

Right. Roberts couldn’t simply find the whole thing constitutional, so this was the pound of flesh. But the back and forth accounts make clear it was initially the opposite, and Roberts was inclined to find the expansion constitutional but the mandate not. Principled jurist.

socio-steve.bsky.social•1 day ago

Which is why I no longer give them the benefit of the doubt ever. It is all politics and no principle. Any sufficiently clever lawyer can backfill a justification into whatever they want to do. Law doesn't have to be word games but law is currently just word games.

figgityfigs.bsky.social•1 day ago

Right. This is largely why I find the justification of the decision on the Medicaid expansion to be worthless, because we know the same people were prepared to make the opposite decision.

burtonad.bsky.social•1 day ago

Maybe I’m slow, but I just realized that CJ Roberts has settled comfortably into being a home plate umpire who calls strikes for one team that are three feet outside, and balls on the other team when the pitch is thigh high and bisects home plate.

hmsgreengoose.bsky.social•1 day ago

The US courts are a complete farce and yes you should panic.

alwaysadorecats.bsky.social•1 day ago

“Hocus pocus majorum doctorum” said the law wizard, and everyone just went along with it.

guiltypanacea.bsky.social•1 day ago

Every weekday, I go to work being a lawyer and it all feels like a giant sham

guiltypanacea.bsky.social•1 day ago

I really hope he is remembered as one of the most culpable individuals for this mess

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