With Obamacare, It Still Ain't Over Til It's Over

That’s the view of David Catron, writing in the American Spectator:

Recent news coverage concerning Obamacare’s legal difficulties has been dominated by King v. Burwell, which challenges the controversial IRS decision to issue subsidies and penalties through federally created insurance exchanges in 34 states that refused set up PPACA “marketplaces.” The Supreme Court announced last month that it would take up King, and it will hear oral arguments in March. The alacrity with which the Court took up the case, upon which it will hand down a ruling in June, has rendered the law’s supporters nearly hysterical. But King is by no means the only legal threat Obamacare will face next year.

Ironically, considering the number of apocalyptic headlines it has produced, King v. Burwell probably presents less danger to the “reform” law than either of two additional lawsuits the Court could take up in 2015. The justices have already received a cert petition to hear Coons v. Lew, whose plaintiffs hold that Obamacare’s Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) constitutes a violation of the separation of powers doctrine. And it is a virtual certainty that the Court will also be asked to take up Sissel v. HHS, which challenges the law on the grounds that its passage violated the Constitution’s origination clause.

Both challenges are potentially more lethal because, unlike King, they constitute direct threats to the law itself.

First of all, the IPAB is an un-American monstrosity that ought to be quickly booted by the Court. And while John Roberts may have choked on the chance to put Obamacare o sleep the first time the Supreme Court heard a challenge against it, but he may also have opened the door to its demise by calling it a tax (even though the Democrats didn’t). The flim-flammery, trickeration and bamboozlement attending the law’s passage may ultimate turn out to be its well-deserved demise.

By the way, how many of the 60 Democrat senators, all of whom voted for Obamacare in 2009, remain in office since the law’s passage? Exactly half.