James Madison on Obamacare

Obamacare is being threatened yet again as a new mistake is discovered in the 2,000 page bill.

States could dodge a key part of the health care reform law because of a little-noticed mistake in the lengthy bill, according to a white paper by conservative health care experts Michael Cannon and Jonathan Adler.

A missing word in the law’s definition of a health insurance exchange could prevent the federal government from doling out crucial subsidies to aid middle class and lower-income people in buying insurance in states that refuse to set up their own exchanges. (Only 14 states are close to setting up exchanges so far. The federal government will set up back-up exchanges in states that don’t have their own by 2014.) If Cannon and Adler are right, the federal government would also not be able to fine large employers in states without exchanges if their lack of coverage leads employees to buy insurance in a federal exchange.

The law defines a health insurance exchange as a “governmental agency or nonprofit entity that is established by a state” in one section of the law, and then says later that individuals who participate in exchanges under that definition are eligible for subsidies. Because the law only says a “state” and not “a state or the federal government,” Cannon and Adler argue that the federal government cannot legally dole out subsidies or tax breaks to people who buy insurance from federal exchanges.

All this reminds me of what James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 62:

It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.

Our Founding Fathers would be appalled at 2,000 page bills that are rushed through Congress without a single Congressman reading it before voting nor the President before signing it.