Jon Stewart mocked cable news doomsayers on Wednesday’s “The Daily Show” for branding a court decision that banned people from receiving Obamacare subsidies on the federal exchange as a huge blow to the health care law.
Cable news personalities were quick to call the Halbig v. Burwell ruling a “bloody mess” that created “chaos and confusion,” leading Stewart to exclaim “It’s the end of the world, you blew it up! Obamacare is made of people!”
The comedian also knocked the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals for taking the clause “enrolled in through an Exchange established by the State” quite literally in interpreting the law. Its ruling determined that residents of 36 states that did not opt to build their own Obamacare exchanges — “the redder ones,” Stewart whispered — were not eligible for subsidies.
“A normal person might say, do you really think the law intended subsidies only for lower-income citizens of states who weren’t being dicks about the exchanges?” he quipped.
“I’m just happy both judges got to work that morning, assuming that once they hit stop signs, their days ends,” Stewart added. “Until the law expressly provides a go sign, we can in no way ascertain the intent of the framers of the sign.”
Yet a different federal appeals court reached a conflicting opinion on the Obamacare subsidies on the same day.
“How did the Republican judges not uphold Obamacare, yet the Democratic judges did?” Stewart wondered before the answer came to him: the courts are just an extension of a broken government.
Watch below, courtesy of Comedy Central:
It is extremely gauling to me that republican judges can issue any sort of batshit crazy ruling they want, and when it gets overturned…it immediately gets couched as a partisan false equivalence.
Stewart was dead on about the Stop sign though.
The court which upheld ACA subsidies had an analogy in their ruling which I’ll paraphrase:
Suppose a man says to a friend, “Here’s $20 to get us a pizza from Dominos. You can also go to Pizza Hut.”
A literal interpretation says the friend can only spend the $20 at Dominos, and he can go to Pizza Hut but has to leave empty-handed. A reasonable interpretation is that he can spend the $20 at either pizzeria.
You of course realize that TPM was among the worst of these offenders right? About the only place that I read what I would consider non sensationalist reporting on this case was Vox.
I understand that you are all trying as hard as you can to generate clicks in the 24 hour news environment, but panicked, over the top headlines and stories are only appealing to your most emotional readers.
The more sane and thoughtful reporting on this case stated the obvious. This wasn’t a “major blow” or a “threat” to The ACA. The full court will almost certainly overturn it, and it’s more than likely that given Roberts earlier ruling on it, that he isn’t going to 1. suddenly decide to gut the law, and 2. take away insurance from what will be tens of millions of Americans when or even IF they hear this case.
Please report responsibly, this is your duty as journalists. Trust me - the vast majority of your readership under 50 (and probably a good deal of those over 50) are turned off by this.
Joshua Micah Marshall wrote that the Supreme Court probably won’t take the case, since the top lower courts will be in agreement before it reaches them. But that the Supreme Court will probably strike down ACA subsidies if they do take the case.
Josh himself very well might have - but the headlines here at TPM, which is his place, did not. Josh doesn’t get a pass if the site he runs was just as bad. Sorry.
“Appeals Court Deals Major Blow To Obamacare”