In recent years, one group has had more success at the Supreme Court than any other. It’s not Republicans. It’s also not conservatives, per se. It’s not the NRA, the Koch brothers, or the religious right movement.
It’s the Chamber of Commerce.
In Justice John Roberts’ court, there’s been a lot for the right to like, but Big Business and Corporate America have consistently found a friendly ear among the majority of the sitting justices. With this in mind, Stephanie Mencimer’s report last night stood out as especially significant.
If getting rid of Obamacare is such a good idea, why isn’t corporate America getting behind King v. Burwell, the Supreme Court case designed to demolish the Affordable Care Act? More than 52 different parties have weighed in with briefs in advance of oral arguments on March 4…. But not a single business group — not the US Chamber of Commerce, not any of the health industry companies and trade groups that opposed the law when it was being drafted — has presented a brief endorsing this lawsuit.These outfits are either backing the Obama administration’s attempt to defeat the suit or sitting out this case. Briefs in the case help explain why: Obamacare is working.
Mencimer pointed to a brief filed by the Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), the nation’s largest health care provider, which described the argument underpinning King v. Burwell as “absurd,” while also making the argument that the system at risk in this case is working quite well, both for the public and for America’s hospitals.
What’s more, it’s not just private medical institutions pushing against the ridiculous litigation. National Journal reported a couple of weeks ago that private insurers are doing the same thing.
In an amicus brief filed Wednesday, health insurers said a ruling against the subsidies would have widespread and severe ripple effects, potentially throwing states’ entire insurance markets into chaos.Stopping the flow of subsidies “would create severely dysfunctional insurance markets” in 34 states, America’s Health Insurance Plans, the industry’s leading trade organization, said in its amicus brief. “It would leave consumers in those States with a more unstable market and far higher costs than if the ACA had not been enacted.” […]AHIP … said the state and federal exchanges work the same as a practical issue. The subsidies and the law’s individual mandate are part of an interconnected series of policies designed to stabilize insurance markets, AHIP said — irrespective of who runs the exchange in any particular market.
We generally think of Big Business and Corporate America aligning themselves with Republicans, and for good reason; that’s usually true. But on the Affordable Care Act, which Republicans like to pretend is bad for the private sector, the usual partisan lines are blurred — the White House, insurance companies, hospitals, and even pharmaceutical companies are all telling the Supreme Court that this stupid case is genuinely dangerous, both to the American public and the American marketplace.
And that’s no small development. It’s quite easy to imagine Republicans on the Supreme Court ignoring the White House and deliberately gutting one of President Obama’s accomplishments, but it’s tougher to imagine those same justices blowing off private-sector leaders — the same corporate leaders hoping to avoid systemic chaos and shattered balance sheets.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."