For the Record: Why the Affordable Care Act Will Survive

Photo by CQ Roll Call via Forbes.

 

 A heavy Twitter day, sorry. Some more arguments with friends:

There's too much Grassley in it. We need to get it rewritten by a committee with fewer Republicans.

— Ghastreblyansky (@Yastreblyansky) October 24, 2020

That I have never believed. Huge financialized corporations--hospitals, insurers--have a very big stake in preserving it, and finding for Texas would cause serious chaos https://t.co/kdHUAkVLFi. The Court cares more about them than it does about Trump.

— Ghastreblyansky (@Yastreblyansky) October 24, 2020

It's not a "belief", it's an analysis. It's not because I think Roberts and Gorsuch are virtuous and honorable people, it's because I think they're tools of capital, the interests of which coincide with ours in this case, while the Trumpy GOP is busy committing suicide.

— Ghastreblyansky (@Yastreblyansky) October 24, 2020

That describes Alito and Kavanaugh and probably Barrett. Thomas is sui generis, as Corey Robin describes him, a Black nationalist whose conservatism has strange roots. Roberts and Gorsuch work for Capital and their interests occasionally coincide with ours.

— Ghastreblyansky (@Yastreblyansky) October 24, 2020

have filed amicus briefs in favor of ACA for this case. Jonathan Adler, the lawyer who did more than anyone to bring down ACA a lawsuit or two ago, has spoken out against this one, not because he loves workers now but because the way it ends ACA is insanely bad for Capital.

— Ghastreblyansky (@Yastreblyansky) October 24, 2020

I'm writing a post disagreeing with Nicholas Lemann/New Yorker https://t.co/gXxDNm4Ya9, but he got this part almost right, except not quite seeing that ACA is business legislation: pic.twitter.com/IDDKHCy1Nc

— Ghastreblyansky (@Yastreblyansky) October 24, 2020

But it is business legislation, created to guarantee the right of health insurance companies to expand their markets everywhere and hospitals to never face the horror of unprovided care, and will remain so at least until we get to start introducing a public option next year. A Roberts Court will be very willing to combat that, perhaps, but just this past April they did rule in favor of the ACA's co-op insurers and the risk corridor program they depended on, against the vandalism of a bunch of Republicans led by Marco Rubio (I wrote about that at an earlier stage here), in an 8-1 decision written by Justice Sotomayor (Alito was the vandal holdout).

It's the pervasive left-right spectrum analogy, as Thornton would say, that makes it so hard to see that an enemy like Roberts could land on our side on an issue without ceasing to be an enemy, and makes you guys keep thinking I'm not cynical enough. Again: it's not because Roberts is nice or understanding, or more like you than you think; it's because he's working for successful United Health, not for bankrupt Donald Trump.

Hope to get back to Nicholas Lemann later. Meanwhile, a couple of other things

That started in 2001 and most occurred in Obama administration. 25-year record low was hit in April 2017 https://t.co/Xbp1wfIIyN Trump era's only contribution, First Step Act, passed last December, has had no effect yet (hope it will but it's pretty small ball). No cigar, Donald

— Ghastreblyansky (@Yastreblyansky) October 24, 2020

There's no secret about when Biden stopped being one of the least wealthy people in government--when he left government in January 2017 and started making legitimate money. He's a better writer and public speaker than you are is how he does it https://t.co/Lye6gGPrDg

— Ghastreblyansky (@Yastreblyansky) October 24, 2020

We know how he did it, too, because, unlike some presidential candidates, well, one since 1974, he has released his tax returns going back a considerable way. He is pretty wealthy now, there's no denying it, but he waited, like Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Michelle Obama, until he was out of the federal government to start capitalizing on having been in it. Dinesh thinks it's old-fashioned to look at the timeline, postmodern kids never do that.

And finally this, on the latest Giuliani ratfucking effort (you'll have to click the Politico link for the background, I'm not taking time to write it up):

Best way to get porn on a computer is install it yourself pic.twitter.com/ocSArJgMuV

— Ghastreblyansky (@Yastreblyansky) October 24, 2020

(2) Zlochevsky, who wants US authorities to go easy on his criminal actitivities, hears about Giuliani looking for "dirt" on Biden, and figures they can make a deal.

(3) somebody brings laptops with the Hunter kompromat to the blind (AND pro-Trump) computer repairman.

— Ghastreblyansky (@Yastreblyansky) October 24, 2020

(2) Zlochevsky, who wants US authorities to go easy on his criminal actitivities, hears about Giuliani looking for "dirt" on Biden, and figures they can make a deal.

(3) somebody brings laptops with the Hunter kompromat to the blind (AND pro-Trump) computer repairman.

— Ghastreblyansky (@Yastreblyansky) October 24, 2020

I'm starting to think this is really what happened. Again, the true bits of the story are not damaging to any Democrat (testifying that Joe Biden kept supporting his son through shaking the addiction and that he may have been asked to meet somebody though nobody knows whether he did or not, but it's Rudy who successfully corrupted the Burisma owner).