http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121987/democrats-have-save-republicans-obamacare-bloodletting
Sometime this month, possibly as early as Monday morning, the Supreme Court will issue its ruling in King v. Burwell. If the Court ignores both the text and purpose of the Affordable Care Act, and rules for the challengers, millions of the law’s beneficiaries in 34 states will quickly lose their insurance subsidies and be forced off their health plans. The ensuing chaos would be the consequence not just of the ruling itself, but also of the Republican Party’s expected unwillingness to pass a one-sentence bill clarifying that Obamacare subsidies are available in every state, whether or not each state established its own health insurance exchange.
When King, and similar cases, were first conceived, they quickly became vessels of hope for conservatives, who recognized how difficult and punishing it would be to hobble or eliminate Obamacare through the legislative process. What many of them have come to recognize in the subsequent years is that farming out the job to the judiciary can’t spare them from the subsequent political cost: As decision day approaches, more and more of these conservatives are acknowledging candidly—and typically anonymously—that they will suffer badly if the Supreme Court does the very thing they’ve asked the Supreme Court to do.
“The most likely option is that Congress is unable to pass a fix,” an anonymous Republican Hill staffer told Joel Gehrke of the conservative National Review—a magazine that has beseeched the Court to void the subsidies. “Either Republicans won’t be able to settle on a fix or the president will veto whatever we do come up with. At that point, it will be up to the governors to pass their own laws deeming the national exchange a state exchange. That is the path of least resistance.”
Gehrkin looks at the cross-pressures Republicans would face after a ruling for King and wonders whether they “could be in for a bloodletting.” Though they can’t admit it publicly, the promise of a bloodletting—compounded by the fact that every vulnerable Republican senator in cycle next year represents an affected state—is precisely why so many Republicans privately hope the Court will uphold the subsidies.
If the conventional wisdom which took shape after oral arguments—and to which I subscribe—is correct, the government will win, and this painful exercise in bad faith legal mischief will come to nothing. But if the challengers win, and a bloodletting ensues, Democrats won’t be able to stand back while Republicans absorb the political damage. Bloodletting or no, Obamacare will be crippled in most states. It could easily remain crippled indefinitely. Its fate will turn on the question of whether the political consequences for Republicans resemble the consequences of a government shutdown or collision with the debt limit. But either way Democrats will have to play an active role in bringing about a resolution.
The best-case scenario for Democrats is a public outcry so severe and sustained that Republicans cave, and agree to restore the subsidies with a clean fix.
ignoring old morals of the lessons they really need to be careful of what they wish for we know if they don't they are forever half cocked because they only promote their side which only encompasses less than half the country and those numbers are falling daily, given their side dramatically differs from our side to the tune of 180 degrees.
they also seem to give less than gnat crap that their 7 year effort will ultimately grant those other wishes of theirs you know the "taking our country back" on back to no insurance and insurance companies gouging out you bank accounts and in return sub quality healthcare for more money, and of course the denial of ACA millions many first time insured. that my friends relegates millions of American citizens back to the republican approved healthcare system your neighborhood ER.
