Did Scott Walker Just Become the Newest Obamacare Defender?

[riversedge]

“Walker said..this law-#ACA- was written in a way to provide subsidies to low-income Americans..” http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/01/scott_walker_s_unexpected_defense_of_obamacare_the_wisconsin_governor_may.html?wpsrc=sh_all_tab_tw_top #wipolitics #p2



http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/01/scott_walker_s_unexpected_defense_of_obamacare_the_wisconsin_governor_may.html#


Did Scott Walker Just Become the Newest Obamacare Defender?

Expect to hear more about the Wisconsin governor’s on-camera comments if he enters the 2016 presidential race.
By Betsy Woodruff




521809951DH014_ Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's past remarks are being scrutinized.
Darren Hauck / Getty Images

Obamacare advocates have had a rough time of it lately. In November, the Obama administration admitted to erroneously overstating the number of enrollees by counting people who signed up for dental plans. In December, MIT economist and Affordable Care Act architect Jonathan Gruber got dissected by a House panel for a string of excruciatingly candid comments about the law’s design. (Its success, Gruber had previously argued, was in part due to “the stupidity of the American voter.”) And this month, the New England Journal of Medicine is running a paper saying the ACA’s supporters “have good reason to worry” about an upcoming Supreme Court decision that could gut the law.


But on Wednesday—finally!—ACA defenders thought they may have caught a break. “Republican Governor Caught on Tape Demolishing the Legal Case Against Obamacare,” blared a ThinkProgress headline. In the piece, the site’s justice editor Ian Millhiser detailed comments that Wisconsin Gov. (and potential 2016 Republican presidential contender) Scott Walker made to the Wall Street Journal in 2013 about his interpretation of the president’s health care law.

Walker’s money quote is this: “But, in the end, there’s no real substantive difference between a federal exchange, or a state exchange, or the in-between, the hybrid, the partnership.”


No, it’s not exactly eye-popping. But Millhiser argues that the governor’s comments could be relevant for the Supreme Court’s upcoming decision in King v. Burwell. The plaintiffs in King argue that the plain reading of the ACA dictates that subsidies to make health insurance affordable for low-income people are only available to those who live in states that set up their own health insurance exchanges. In other words, the plaintiffs contend that if you purchase your health insurance through the federal exchange, the government can’t give you a subsidy to help offset the cost. The government is the defendant in the case (the case’s title refers to Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell). Its lawyers argue that the Internal Revenue Service rule—used to clarify the intent of the law and allow the government to give you a subsidy—is legal..............



Of course, it depends on whom you ask. Chris Lillis, the Virginia state director of the unabashedly pro-ACA Doctors for America, celebrated the comments.............

[Scuba]

1. A stopped clock.