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Phydeaux -> RE: The next shoe to drop.... (12/1/2013 9:47:49 PM)
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So returning to the next shoes to drop:
Two more areas of "settled law" that I think will result in portions of Obamacare being ruled illegal. I mentioned the indiana school district, previously. One of the plaintiffs is Oklahoma:
While the president's health law is vast and extraordinarily complex, it is in one respect very simple. Subsidies are only to be made available, and tax penalties for not signing up for health insurance are only to be assessed, in states that create their own health-care exchange. The IRS, however, is attempting to enforce tax penalties in all states—including Oklahoma and the majority of the other states that have declined to create their own exchanges. Citizens and businesses in these states must use the federal exchange instead.
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Bloomberg News
The distinction is critical, because under the terms of the law it is the availability of government insurance-premium subsidies that triggers the penalties against businesses if they fail to provide their employees with health insurance that the administration deems acceptable. This is a huge problem for the administration, which desperately needs to hand out tax credits and subsidies to the citizenry to quash the swelling backlash against the law.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304448204579186322449012040
The supreme court already has standards for constitutional challenge. However
What’s actually new here is the Obama administration’s 2012 regulation requiring almost all employers to cover contraception, sterilization and drugs that may cause abortion. It issued that regulation under authority given in the Obamacare legislation.
The regulation runs afoul of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a Clinton-era law. That act says that the government may impose a substantial burden on the exercise of religious belief only if it’s the least restrictive way to advance a compelling governmental interest. The act further says that no later law should be read to trump this protection unless it explicitly says it’s doing that. The Affordable Care Act has no such language.
So while the law may or may not be constitutional, it seems likely it falls afoul of the Religous Freedom Restoration Act.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-30/war-on-contraception-no-an-attack-on-religion.html
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