Morning Plum: Anti-Obamacare lawsuit comes under intense media scrutiny
washingtonpost.com
By Greg Sargent February 10 at 9:09AM
As I had hoped would happen, the lawsuit that could do severe damage to the Affordable Care Act is finally coming under intense media scrutiny, and the results are not pretty. The latest: The Wall Street Journal is raising new questions about the standing of two of the plaintiffs in the case, after previously raising questions about the standing of two others.
The Journal reports that Rose Luck, one of the four names on the King v. Burwell lawsuit, previously listed a short-term-stay motel as her address, but is no longer there. Her address is directly relevant, the Journal says, because it was used to calculate her eligibility for subsidies, which determined that she is subject to the mandate — and, hence, can claim injury. The question is whether her standing at the time the lawsuit was filed is enough, or, as one expert puts it, if “standing is dynamic and has to be present at all times.”
Strikingly, a spokesperson for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which is bankrolling the case, told the Journal that Ms. Luck still lives in Virginia, but declined to say where.
Meanwhile, the Journal piece also adds new detail about Brenda Levy, a 64-year-old schoolteacher who is also a plaintiff, and note in particular the bit I’ve bolded:
She said at her Richmond home Saturday that she couldn’t recall how or when she had become involved in the case and that several times that she and the other plaintiffs had been told not to talk about it. She said she had little knowledge of the case’s progress, including when it had been filed, guessing only that she had become a participant before that date….
A spokesman for Chesterfield County Public Schools, which Ms. Levy had listed as her employer in most of her recent campaign-donation filings, said her annual rate of pay was less than $10,000. A single person earning that amount wouldn’t have to pay the penalty if she went without coverage and would make too little to qualify for any tax credits. Ms. Levy didn’t answer questions about her income on Saturday and didn’t respond to an email on Monday.
If these two plaintiffs are being shielded from media scrutiny, as the Journal seems to suggest, perhaps it’s because reporters might like to know more about how they came to be on this lawsuit and what they were told about it.
Indeed, Mother Jones reported yesterday that Levy said she had no clue the lawsuit could nix health coverage for millions, that she didn’t like that idea, and that she was under the impression such an outcome could be fixed at the local level. In reality, Virginia elected not to establish an exchange because of opposition from Republicans and conservatives. There is no indication Virginia would set one up, even if it were necessary to keep subsidies flowing. In fact, some Virginia legislators support this lawsuit explicitly because it could deprive “millions” of subsidies, potentially leading to the “complete unraveling of the law.”
If proponents of this lawsuit have worked hard to create the impressionthat a post-lawsuit fix is a genuine possibility — to make the consequences of an anti-ACA ruling appear less dire — this may also be working on at least one of the plaintiffs.
The Journal has now raised standing questions about all four plaintiffs. The Journal reported a few days ago that the other two, including lead plaintiff David King, are eligible for medical care as veterans, and thus could escape the mandate. But there are potential inconsistencies here, too: The Journal reported that “King said he had been to a VA medical center and had a VA identification card, which typically serves as proof of VA-care enrollment.” But a lawyer for the plaintiffs subsequently said King was never enrolled.
To be clear, the standing questions almost certainly won’t be enough to disable the lawsuit. All it needs is one plaintiff with standing. And there are other people out there — on other lawsuits, and beyond — who can legitimately claim injury. This legal challenge will go forward one way or another.
But all of these new, emerging details feed the generally trumped-up, circus-like sense that is increasingly enveloping this lawsuit. And there are plenty of questions about it that remain unanswered. |
