Major props to SCOTUS!!!! PEOPLE over politics!!!

    On Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that subsidies for the poor who qualify for them under the Affordable Care Act, to help pay for their insurance, is legal nationwide...even in the 34 states that failed to establish their own exchanges.  In writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts noted, "Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them." The majority opinion cited the law's "more than a few examples of inartful drafting," but added, "the context and structure of the Act compel us to depart from what would otherwise be the most natural reading of the pertinent statutory phrase."  Roberts was joined by the court's liberal justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, as well as by Anthony Kennedy. In his dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia said: "We should start calling this law SCOTUScare," and in a major sour grapes moment added that the court was playing favorites with laws.

    Go ahead, Scalia Scallywag!!!  That name works for me.  Thank goodness the high court of this country was willing to protect the ability of more than 6 million Americans to attain health insurance. And for those of you who think the subsidies are a gross expenditure of tax payer money.... Who do you think paid the bill for those same patients when they were without insurance and showed up in the ER, in horrible shape, since they had gone without care for far too long?  You did!!!  And at that point, the bill to taxpayers was even higher, not to mention the inhumanity we allowed fellow Americans to endure.  And...if you think... Who cares?  I've always paid for my own insurance!  You and me both, buddy.  Since I was 18 years old.  But, once diagnosed with melanoma, I happened to be on my husband's family insurance plan for which we paid extra.  That diagnosis, gave me a huge "pre-existing condition" and the insurance companies the right to refuse me the ability to purchase my own insurance should my husband quit, get fired, retire, or die.  Basically if he lost his job and the family insurance plan in any way...I would have been left with no insurance and no way to get it.  With SCOTUScare...those of us with melanoma and a bazillion other horrible diagnoses cannot be discriminated against in that way by the insurance companies!  Thanks, Antonin!  You're a doll.  NPR report 

    But, wait...before you raise your glass and start cheering the court.....they've made another good, reasonable and humane ruling!!! TODAY, in a 5-4 vote, SCOTUS ruled that the Constitution guarantees the right to gay marriage. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority in the historic decision, said gay and lesbian couples had a fundamental right to marry.  “No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice and family,” he wrote. “In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were.”  The decision made same-sex marriage a reality in the 13 (Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, Ohio, Tennessee, and Texas) states that had continued to ban it.  

    So...even if you are not gay, don't understand it, think that all homosexuals are going straight to the devil...how does their being allowed to marry hurt anyone else?  Glad the court grew a pair, along with a conscience, and ruled that who you choose to love and marry is a legal right, not a blessing to be given or withheld by others.  Would love to visit, but glad I don't have to move to Ireland!  NY Times report

People over politics.  It's about time!  Cheers! - c