Antonin Scalia’s unintentional humor

[Agnosticsherbet]

Antonin Scalia’s unintentional humor
During oral arguments this morning in the King v. Burwell case, Justice Antonin Scalia heard Solicitor General Don Verrilli warn of dire consequences if the Supreme Court strips millions of families of their health care insurance subsides. The Republican jurist just didn’t believe the consequences would be ignored by the people’s representatives.



It led to an unintentionally amusing exchange:


SCALIA: What about Congress? You really think Congress is just going to sit there while all of these disastrous consequences ensue? I mean, how often have we come out with a decision such as the ­­ you know, the bankruptcy court decision? Congress adjusts, enacts a statute that takes care of the problem. It happens all the time. Why is that not going to happen here?



VERRILLI: Well, this Congress?

In spite of the title, this is not fucking joke.

This Congress will burn everything down. They are not responsive to the needs of the citizens of he country.

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

1. Maybe we are at the point where burning it all to the ground is needed.

We know what a horrible man Scalia is, we have to rely on Roberts caring more about his actual legacy (as opposed to how extremist American Taliban TeaParTY will see him) than he dies his bona fides with the ugliest of the ugly.

[Agnosticsherbet]

2. So we we should force millions of Americans to loose health care?

I don't find that an acceptable solution.

Yes, it may happen anyway.

Doesn't make it the right solution.

[TheNutcracker]

4. Single Payer?

[Agnosticsherbet]

7. Frist, you must elect a party that will have a mjority in the House and a 60 seat majority

in the Senate who will actually pass single payer, and elect a President who would sign that bill.

We had a Democratic President and Democratic Congress between 2008 and 2010, and no one even attempted to pass a single payer system.

It would be both immoral and unethical to force millions to live without healthcare until some mythical Congress is elected that will pass such legislation.

The way to get single payer is to keep improving our existing system. It can evolve from the system we have, but it won't be quick.

[strawberries]

8. why is single payer such a hard thing to pass

why wasn't it passed in the initial ACA? I just don't get it

[Agnosticsherbet]

10. Because we did not have a majoirity in the House that would write such a bill.

We did not have a majority it the Senate that would write such a bill.

We did not have a President that told the House and Senate, give me Single Payer.

What was written was a bill that would use the existing insurance system and make it cheaper and expand it to cover the vast majority of Americans. Those not covered would have access to Medicaid.

It wasn't even possible to get a public option. The public option as conceived was a very cheap, very basic system that would be used to keep prices low. The public option never made it past the committee.

it is difficult because there is not a sufficient number of people in the 50 states who would elect a majority of members of Congress who would consider writing such a bill.

As I said, if we keep a majority of Democrats in the House and the Senate, overtime our System will be improved to something approaching Single Payer or Medicare for all.

But writing such a bill from the get go is not possible now and never was.

And standing back and letting Republicans burn the healthcare system down is both immoral and unethical.

[sendero]

16. And the REASON...

... we didn't have those majorities is that the Democratic party is overrun with DINOs.

[Agnosticsherbet]

18. No. The reason is that a majority of voting Democrats would not elect such a congress.

They are not Dinos, but Democrats come from a wide chunk of the political spectrum.

And if you somehow gave the boot to everyone that would not elect your mythical majority.

We would never elect a majority in Congress to do anything.

[sendero]

22. And yet..

.....poll after poll shows that Americans are way more liberal than most of congress. What a curiosity.

[jeff47]

11. Only something like 10 votes for it in the Senate.

Public option had higher support, but Lieberman killed his own public option proposal late in the process. Kinda proves he would block a stronger public option, and he was the 60th vote.

The 59th vote was Ben Nelson, who had to be bribed to not join the filibuster. He would have never voted for single payer, and likely would have opposed a public option.

[Agnosticsherbet]

13. This is an excellent explaintion of what happened.

And shows why something like Single Payer is not in the cards for the foreseeable future.

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

12. No, I meant IF they do gut ACA, then the response maybe needs to be serious.

It wont be, of course, because we are all still too comfortable, even without healthcare, to risk everything with a response.

[Agnosticsherbet]

14. If they gut the ACA, then we need to elect a majorty of Democrats to the House and Senate.

We can not get serious about anything as long as Republicans set the legislative agenda.

Republicans are dead serious about repealing the ACA completely.

We will have to see if the Supreme Court does part of their work for them.

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

17. What do people do while we spend 2 or 4 or 6 or 8 years to get complete control

of the government so as to provide the healthcare the rest of the civilized world seems to have no problem providing to their citizens?

What do the uninsured and dying people do while we do that?

If the SC does what I think they are going to do, there is instant fallout to millions and millions more will have premiums go up.

I guess I am venting in a way, I know we wont do a damn thing (in the moment I mean) and people will die while we accomplish it the usual way, if we do at all.

[Agnosticsherbet]

19. The majority party in the House and Senate set the legislative agenda.

We can not get serious about passing legislation until we have a majority.

The President can not fix the ACA, can not improve the ACA. Only the House and the Senate can pass legislation.

If we are really serious, we have to get people out to vote for Democrats until we elect enough to get the majority.

I understand you are venting.

I will do my venting at the ballot box.

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

20. I of course vote, I was merely wondering what the poor and uninsured will do...guess they will

die if they arent lucky enough to get an ER to take care of them.

[Agnosticsherbet]

21. Well, I and my brother will find the money to help my sister.

She has Medicaid, but we did that before the ACA because she could not afford some of her meds and eat.

A lot of people will do without.

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

23. My step daughter is in dire straights, and her kids, so we help of course. The good news

there is she qualifies as do the kids for medicaid.

I would hate to live in a state that has declared war on the poor, all of which have one thing in common, American Taliban aka TeaParTY republicans rule.

[Scuba]

3. Scalia's about as funny as pancreatic cancer.

[strawberries]

9. not funny, but funny

[Sarcastica]

5. If Congress just made illness illegal, this would be a Criminal Justice Issue.

Or you could have Congress deem germs and maladies to be Muslims and then it could be a National Security concern!

[uponit7771]

6. +1, this congress doesn't have to be... they weren't elected by the majority of citizens

... and were gerrymandered into their positions

[Agnosticsherbet]

15. And that is my complaint with a majority of citizens. A 36.4% Congress sucks. nt