GOP Perversity on Obamacare 2.0

     Greg Sargent is discussing what the GOP will do in response to the SJC gutting ACA subsidies. If you want to see what they're response might be check out how they handled immigration reform. Or how they reformed the Voting Rights Act after the SJC struck down Clause 4. 

     http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/06/jon-thune-says-it-all-about-gop.html

     That same day Texas took new measures to prevent the wrong people from voting and there was no response by the GOP Congress whatsoever. Really if you think there will be you haven't been paying attention.

     "If you want to understand the evolving GOP strategy for the political war that may be unleashed by a Supreme Court decision gutting Obamacare subsidies for millions, pay close attention to this new exchange between Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Fox News’ Bret Baier:

 BAIER: Doesn’t this hold some potential problems for the GOP? What do you think the solution is if you have to deal with this quickly?

 McCONNELL: Depending on what the Supreme Court decides, we’ll have a proposal that protects the American people from a very bad law. Obamacare was the single worst piece of legislation that’s been passed in the last half century. The single biggest step in the direction of Europeanizing our country…What we will do is offer a proposal to protect the American people.

BAIER: But won’t there be some in your party who say that any vote, even that — that patch — will be a tacit endorsement of Obamacare in some way?

McCONNELL: I think we have to see what the Supreme Court decides before we announce a proposal to deal with it.

    "The repetition of the word “protect” has a distinctly focus-grouped aura to it. But this clever formulation contains the seeds of its own refutation, and neatly indicates why the Republican post-King argument will, of necessity, be incoherent and (one hopes) politically untenable."

     http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/06/10/morning-plum-mitch-mcconnells-fiendishly-clever-strategy-for-coming-obamacare-war/

     Part of what's going on is I think is that the GOP knows that they have to appear to have a fix in case the Court guts the subsidies-otherwise John Roberts won't gut the subsidies. 

     Now in the eventuality that the subsides are gutted the GOP I agree will face a real problem. However, this is the GOP we're talking about. They admitted they had a problem with immigration after the 2012 loss and then went on to not do anything about it.

     I see no reason to think that this won't work out the very same. 

     My take is that this is more about reassuring Chief Justice Roberts than it is anything else at this stage. The GOP doesn't worry about potential long term fallout. Right now, darn the torpedoes, they just want this law struck down or at least greatly weakened and the potential victory over Obama is all they care about. 

   If this leads to political fallout for them later, they're not even thinking about this now. So if anything, McConnell is mostly just reassuring Roberts-as all prominent GOPers have been doing for the last 6 months. 

   My take is that contrary to Sargent's framing, they are a lot more concerned at this stage of the game with gutting Obamacare than they are about any subsequent problems they may have. 

   The 1 positive I have is that I would place the odds of Roberts gutting ACA as considerably less than 50% .

     I certainly hope I'm right and think that it will be a disaster if it does. However, I agree that if it does the GOP will pay a steep price politically compounded on what they're going to pay for their intransigence on immigration reform. 

   However, Roberts himself I'm sure has been considering the scenario that gutting the subsidies would be a disaster. 

    Obama too has been playing to Roberts here as well when he says that ACA has become part of the American fabric. 

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/06/09/obama-health-law-has-now-been-woven-into-the-fabric-of-america/

    I would say that in a sense both McConnell and the President are making their closing arguments to Roberts. 

   1. For Roberts to agree to gut the subsidies the GOP needs him to be convinced that there is a fix-that the GOP Congress (!) will actually fix the law if it's struck down. 

   2. If Obama can convince Roberts that ACA has become woven into the American fabric then Roberts will be very reluctant to strike it down. 

   Roberts is going to want to be very small c conservative here-for his ruling to have as little impact on society and generate as little heat as possible. My guess is his prudence will stop from gutting Obamacare. 

  I'm considerably more of an optimist than Sargent. However, I have to admit that you can't be totally sanguine that this is how Roberts will rule as we have the example of the Voting Rights Act where he was convinced that the GOP would fix Clause 4 and they didn't even look at the question. 

  That could happen again; however, the difference is that this is many orders of magnitude higher profile. Again, what he doesn't want is any sustained political backlash. If the GOP loses the case they will grumble a lot but things will get back to normal very quickly. If they win the case it have an earth-shattering effect on every level of government and law across the country and lead to a political firestorm. 

   So my guess is in this case he'll accept the grumbling of his fellow conservatives.