Another red state caught lying to the Supreme Court about health insurance exchanges

[Judi Lynn]

Mon Apr 06, 2015 at 09:18 AM PDT.

Another red state caught lying to the Supreme Court about health insurance exchanges

by Joan McCarter

Evidence continues to mount that the Republican states which filed amicus briefs for the plaintiffs in the King v. Burwell Supreme Court Obamacare challenge lied to the court. Over the past few months, Huffington Post has been examining various states' documentation of policy meetings, legislative hearings, local news reports, speeches, etc. to find any evidence at all that state lawmakers talked about pre-King what they now say they all knew—that the law was written to exclude subsidies to people buying health insurance on the federal exchange.

A very strong case in point: Alabama. Republican Gov. Robert Bentley had actually campaigned on setting up a state-based exchange, and initially pushed hard to make it happen. That included setting up the Alabama Health Insurance Exchange Study Commission, which was tasked with determining costs, processes, working with stakeholders, etc. Did the possibility that the state's residents couldn't receive the subsidies if the state didn't create an exchange ever come up?

"No. No. No. That was never, never brought up," [state Sen. Jim McClendon (R)] McClendon said in an interview with The Huffington Post last month. "I was unaware of that stipulation in the Affordable Care Act, and I would almost have to guess that anybody involved in this process was not aware of it. I was a little surprised when it came up eventually. Nope. I was the chairman of the commission and I was totally unaware of that."

In other words, according to McClendon, at no point during the commission's five meetings between September and November 2011, nor during a legislative debate that stretched into the spring of 2012, did anyone conceive of the most significant consequence that could result from Alabama opting for a federally run health insurance marketplace. The commission ended up unanimously recommending a state-run exchange.

More:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/06/1375940/-Another-red-state-caught-lying-to-the-Supreme-Court-about-health-insurance-nbsp-exchanges?detail=email#

[blackspade]

1. Rethugs lying in a court of law?

Inconceivable!

[RoccoR5955]

2. Par for the course.

Nixon was their role model for this.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

3. I'm shocked!

[BrotherIvan]

4. Will there be consequences?

Or just a stern look?

[Doctor_J]

5. This would seem to qualify as perjury

[Jim Lane]

6. Not if it's in an amicus brief.

This is a weakness in the system that's becoming of more concern to some lawyers, both left and right. Briefs to SCOTUS, from the parties and especially from amici, present all kinds of "information" as to matters of "fact" but they aren't from the record made below. The court that first heard the case might have taken testimony under oath. The additional assertions by the amici, however, didn't go through that process.

A brief, whether from a party or an amicus, is signed by the lawyer, who thereby certifies that it's filed in good faith. Good faith, however, isn't the same as testifying to one's personal knowledge. You couldn't nail the lawyer for perjury just because his client was less than honest with him, and you couldn't nail the client because the statements weren't under oath.