Gingrich: High Court Obamacare Decision 'Devastating to President'
Sean Piccoli
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich tells Newsmax TV that a Supreme Court decision on Friday to hear another legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act is "devastating to the president."
How devastating is an open question, Gingrich told "MidPoint" host Ed Berliner on Friday in a visit to Newsmax TV studios.
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"I have no ability to judge what the Supreme Court will do," Gingrich said, noting that Chief Justice John Roberts once cast the deciding vote to uphold President Barack Obama's signature health care overhaul.
But Gingrich said the new challenge is based on making the Affordable Care Act comply with the actual text of the statute that Congress passed and that Obama signed — and Gingrich said that in this case, "The law is very clear."
"The law says you can only subsidize insurance policies offered through state exchanges," he said.
Because 36 states did not set up an exchange, and instead offered subsidized insurance through the federal exchange at healthcare.gov, Gingrich said that "by any reasonable reading of the law, you cannot offer a subsidy in 36 states."
"If the Supreme Court says, 'Since that's what the law literally says, [and] if the law ought to be obeyed,' you just devastated Obamacare in two thirds of the country," said Gingrich.
Roberts in 2012 joined a 5-4 majority ruling that financial penalties on people lacking insurance is a permissible form of taxation, and not the mechanism of an unconstitutional mandate for health coverage.
Gingrich said it has become difficult to read the court "ever since Chief Justice Robert shocked me with his decision — in a convoluted way — that Obamacare was constitutional because of the way he wrote it."
The White House said on Friday it is confident the new challenge will fail.
"This lawsuit reflects just another partisan attempt to undermine the Affordable Care Act and to strip millions of American families of tax credits that Congress intended for them to have," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a statement.
"We are confident that the Supreme Court will recognize both the clear reading of the entire law, and the certain intent of Congress in crafting it," said Earnest.
Said Gingrich, "As a non-lawyer, it's pretty hard to read the law and not believe that it is illegal to have subsidies in 36 states."
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Newt-Gingrich-Supreme-Court-Obamacare/2014/11/07/id/606058/