President Obama weighed in on the pending Supreme Court decision in the King v. Burwell case today at a press conference.
"There is no reason why the existing exchanges should be overturned through a court case," the President said at an overseas news conference while attending the G7 Summit. "It has been well documented that those who passed this legislation never intended for folks who were going through the federal exchange not to have their citizens get subsidies."
"This should be an easy case," he said. He then seemed to launch a dig at the Court for agreeing to hear the case in the first place.
"Frankly, it probably shouldn't even have been taken up," he said.
Indeed. It shouldn't have been, but such are the times we live in. Obama went on to detail the consequences of a ruling that guts the subsidies for states not maintaining insurance exchanges.
"It means that millions of people who are obtaining insurance currently with subsidies suddenly aren't getting those subsidies; many of them can't afford it; they pull out; and the assumptions that the insurance companies made when they priced their insurance suddenly gets thrown out the window. And it would be disruptive -- not just, by the way, for folks in the exchanges, but for those insurance markets in those states, generally," Obama said.
Senator John Barrasso responded to those comments by finally saying out loud what most Republicans won't admit: They will not pass a one-line "fix" to the law, no matter what Justice Scalia believes.
“Instead of bullying the Supreme Court, the president should spend his time preparing for the reality that the court may soon rule against his decision to illegally issue tax penalties and subsidies on Americans in two-thirds of the country,” he said in a statement. “Congress will not pass a so-called ‘one-sentence’ fake fix.”
Meanwhile, Senator John Thune took to Twitter with this tweet, which makes him look just as ridiculous as he is.
Dave Weigel's response was pretty funny.
[h/t ACASignups.net]
Update: I couldn't resist a response to Thune's stupid tweet:
