Today At The Supreme Court

White House: 11.4 Million Americans Are Now Covered Under Obamacare

Pelosi Mocks Obamacare Repeal Attempts

From Rep. Nancy Pelosi's YouTube channel: "It’s another week in the new Republican Congress, which means another stale attempt to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. Thanks to the health care law, uninsured rates are at a record low and more hardworking families are able to afford insurance and yet, Republicans are holding their 56th repeal vote. Unbelievable. Now I know how Bill Murray’s character felt in the movie, Groundhog Day."

SCOTUS To Hear Obamacare Challenge That Would Gut Exchange Subsidies

Via Bloomberg News:

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider a challenge to the subsidies that are a linchpin of President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul, accepting a case that suddenly puts the law under a new legal cloud. Two years after upholding much of the law by a single vote, the justices today said they will hear a Republican-backed appeal targeting tax credits that have helped more than 4 million people afford insurance.A ruling blocking those credits might unravel the Affordable Care Act, making other provisions ineffective and potentially destabilizing insurance markets in much of the country. The high court’s decision to hear the case comes days before the start of the law’s second open-enrollment season. A decision will come by June.

More from Think Progress:

The Affordable Care Act gives states a choice whether they will set up their own health exchange where consumers can buy health insurance or whether to allow the federal government to do so for them. This lawsuit alleges that subsidies helping individuals buy health insurance are only available in exchanges run by a state, not by the feds. If it succeeds, the likely result will be a “death spiral” where higher premiums cause healthy consumers to drop out of the insurance market, which will cause higher premiums, which will cause more consumers to drop their insurance. Eventually, many states’ individual insurance markets are likely to collapse if this lawsuit prevails.

The challenge could cost millions of Americans their health insurance. Just as Jesus would want.

Headline Of The Day

Details. (Tipped by JMG reader Smith)

Obamacare? Are You Nuts?

"All dialog lifted verbatim from the comments sections of conservative web sites." You'll see the ending coming, but stick around for it anyway.

(Tipped by JMG reader David)

Thomas Peters: I'm On Obamacare

As we've long suspected, former NOM communications director Thomas Peters has enrolled in Obamacare. In November an online fundraiser for Peters' medical bills raised over $40K and led many to wonder if he had already lost his insurance with NOM. In late December a posting to his recovery blog celebrated his enrollment in a "new health insurance plan," prompting more speculation that the ardent Obamacare opponent had taken advantage of the very system he worked so hard to thwart. And now Peters has confirmed it.

In 2010 Peters wrote this:

Primary health care is already available at emergency rooms across the country. Medicaid provides health care coverage to those unable to afford it themselves. Many people of their free will (especially young men) choose not to purchase health care insurance because they don’t believe it to be in their best interest. Medicare and Medicaid (the government’s major healthcare entitlement programs) are worse offenders than private insurance when it comes to being unable to actually provide care to their subscribers. An expansion of government-care over private-care means more bureaucracy, means more money going to things besides actual care. Again, Obamacare has not made this situation better, it promises to make it worse.

Isn't it interesting how a grievous disabling injury can suddenly change somebody's mind?  (Tipped by JMG reader Caroline)

Pets For Obamacare

The wingnuts are mocking this, of course.

LIVE VIDEO: President Obama To Speak On Fixes For Affordable Care Act

The president is scheduled to speak at 11:30am Eastern.

Meet The Face Of Healthcare.gov

The woman whose face adorned the Obamacare site has finally stepped forward, but is declining to give her last name because she says she's been the subject of brutal cyber-bullying. Right wing sites today are taking particular glee at the news that the woman is not an American citizen. ABC News interviewed her this morning.

Cruel Irony: Obamacare Opponent Thomas Peters Needs Money For Medical Care

Prior to the July swimming accident that left him a quadriplegic, when NOM communications director Thomas Peters wasn't tweeting against gay marriage, he was issuing regular denouncements of Obamacare.  But now that he's at the literal mercy of our current broken medical system,  a campaign for donations will be launched across social media later this week. I doubt that the irony of this situation weighs much on the minds of his supporters - after all, one of the linchpins of the anti-Obamacare arguments is that "society" and not the government should provide. Among the items that Peters needs help paying for are prescriptions, home health aides, and most ominously, his COBRA premium, which suggests that he's already lost his regular insurance coverage as an employee of NOM. I don't know how much better Peters' situation would be had Obamacare been in full effect when he suffered his injury, but I doubt it would be worse. The goal of this week's fundraiser is $25,000, which is a tiny fraction of what NOM has spent just in the last few months in their failed attempts to thwart the civil rights of Thomas Peters' fellow Americans.

REPORT: Obamacare Sign Up Deadline To Be Delayed By Up To Six Weeks

It's Over Everywhere But Teabagistan

Ted Cruz Is Still Talking

As of this writing Sen. Ted Cruz has been talking for over 17 hours.

A final vote on passage of the stop-gap spending measure is expected to come late Sunday if all the time for debate is used. This leaves the House of Representatives with less than a day to work on the continuing resolution before the Oct. 1 deadline at which point the government would shut down. Cruz has used his marathon session to make the case for why the Affordable Care Act should be defunded in the continuing resolution. He has repeatedly called Obamacare a "train wreck" and read tweets from constituents praising him for his commitment to the issue. But at times, his speech has turning playful as he read his daughters a bedtime story through C-SPAN. "I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam I am," Cruz said quoting Dr. Seuss' "Green Eggs and Ham."Cruz even quoted popular television show "Duck Dynasty" and the lyrics of Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue."

Creepiest Anti-Obamacare Ads Ever?

Courtesy of the Koch Brothers:

Generation Opportunity, a Virginia-based group that is part of a coalition of right-leaning organizations with financial ties to billionaire businessmen and political activists Charles and David Koch, will launch a six-figure campaign aimed at convincing young people to “opt-out” of the Obamacare exchanges. Later this month, the group will begin a tour of 20 college campuses, where they plan to set up shop alongside pro-Obamacare activists such as Enroll America that are working to sign people up for the insurance exchanges. Generation Opportunity intends to host events at college football tailgate parties festivals, where “brand ambassadors” (read: hot young people) will pass out beer koozies that read “opt out,” pizza and literature about the health care law. Some events may have impromptu dance parties with DJ’s, complete with games of cornhole and competitions for prizes, organizers said. Their message: You don’t have to sign up for Obamacare. And they want students to sign a pledge not get insurance plans set up by the law.

Even the hardcore teabaggers are upset, saying that these ads only makes them look stupid.

SCOTUS Orders Lower Court To Reopen Liberty Counsel's Obamacare Suit

Today the Supreme Court ordered the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to take another look at Liberty University's anti-Obamacare lawsuit.

The Supreme Court responded to a request from Liberty University, one of the groups that sued over the health care law’s individual mandate in 2010. When the court ruled in June that the mandate was constitutional, it dismissed Liberty’s entire lawsuit. Over the summer, the school asked the Supreme Court to reopen its arguments against the employer mandate and the contraceptive coverage mandate, which it said were not addressed by the court's ruling this summer. The court on Monday agreed to the request and told the Fourth Circuit to hear arguments on the two pieces. The Fourth Circuit, which traditionally moves quickly, could hear oral arguments in the case next spring. The school's lawyers have told POLITICO that they hope to eventually bring the suit back before the Supreme Court.

Obama: We Can't Turn Back Now

Romney Signs Obamacare Repeal Pledge

Yesterday afternoon Mitt Romney put his name where his mouth has long been and officially signed the pledge to repeal Obamacare. The Independent Women's Voice cheers via press release:

“He understands that ObamaCare represents a government infringement on our constitutional liberties, and he knows that if implemented, it will lead to more government and less freedom, will place government bureaucrats between doctors and their patients, and will limit patients' choice and control.” “Because Mitt Romney has signed the Pledge he has sent a clear signal to voters that, as President, he would sign the full and complete repeal of this government take-over of our private health care decisions,” Higgins added. The Repeal Pledge advocates not just repeal, but defunding, deauthorizing, and dismantling the misleadingly-titled Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, passed in early 2010. The Repeal Pledge was designed as a litmus test to help the American public understand which candidates and office holders are serious about repeal, versus those who claim to be but won't actually take action.

Crazy Eyes: Only A Tiny Percentage Of The Uninsured Go To The Emergency Room

Therefore we don't need Obamacare. Or something.

(Via Think Progress)

Romney Booed At NAACP Convention