The Supreme Court erred in ruling 6-3 on Thursday in favor of federal subsidies for all states under the Affordable Care Act, says John Sununu, former governor of New Hampshire and chief of staff to President George H.W. Bush.
"This court on that decision, as Justice [Antonin] Scalia pointed out in his dissent, decided to interpret the word 'state' as meaning state — and almost anything else," Sununu said Thursday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
Newsmax TV.
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"Scalia's dissent on it is a classic discussion of courts going much too far and even the Supreme Court can make mistakes and they made a mistake this time."
The high court ruled 6-3 that the Affordable Care Act's federal subsidies are valid in all 50 states, not just 13 that set up their own exchanges and three with state-federal hybrid exchanges. A lawsuit claimed four words in the healthcare law — "established by the state" — meant subsidies were only valid in those 16 states.
Sununu — author of
"The Quiet Man: The Indispensable Presidency of George H.W. Bush," published by Broadside — also weighed in on the Confederate flag, the display and sale of which is under fire after being embraced by a white racist who killed nine African Americans in a South Carolina church.
"Some people are going too far pulling Civil War games off the shelves, or the equivalent of shelves, the apps. Frankly, the whole things has gotten to a point where if you're going to try and argue issues, don't give your enemy an easy target," he said.
"To try and fight this issue on just the flag rather than the issue of unbelievably broad PC [political correctness] at this stage of the game is not a constructive way to go. We've got to take the whole issue on rather than just pieces of the issue."
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