“Excuse me, I happen to have myself right here”
by digby
Unbelievable. Michael Cannon the rightwing lawyer behind the King vs burwell case appeared on a web cast in which he used the moderator’s reporting as evidence for his claims that the Democrats created a federal exchange for no good reason:
After Cannon finished his presentation, however, Rovner clarified what she did — and what she did not — report. “While that Texas letter did express concern about people not getting any benefits, they weren’t talking about subsidies,” Rovner explained.
Contrary to Cannon’s claim that the benefits of the Affordable Care Act hinge upon whether a state sets up its own exchange, Rovner noted that “in fact, the paragraph immediately prior” to the portion of her reporting that Cannon relies upon cuts against his argument. In that paragraph, Rovner quoted law professor and health policy expert Tim Jost saying that federally-run exchanges will provide a backstop against recalcitrant states — “if the state fails to do it, then the federal government is supposed to step in.” (The 11 Democrats agree with Jost’s reading of the Senate bill in their letter, which states that “[i]f the state does not set up the exchange, then the Secretary of Health and Human Services is required to set up an exchange for the state.”)
Nevertheless, Cannon continued to insist upon his own interpretation of Rovner’s report even after Rovner herself accused him of mischaracterizing her reporting. According to Cannon there is “no other plausible reading” of Rovner’s own reporting than the reading Cannon preferred.
(It should be noted that, even if Cannon’s reading of Rovner’s reporting were accurate, that still does not prove that the letter itself actually says what Cannon says that it says. To the contrary, it would only prove that Rovner might have misread the letter. Once again, the full text of the letter is available at this link so that our readers can independently verify what it says.)Towards the end of the web debate, when Rovner and her co-panelists began to take questions from people who called into the webcast, a staffer from an advocacy group that supports the Affordable Care Act brought the dispute between Rovner and Cannon up again. Noting that Cannon has, in the past, retracted some of his claims about the Affordable Care Act after they were proven untrue, the caller asked whether Cannon would also retract his claim about Rovner’s reporting now that Rovner herself repudiated Cannon’s interpretation. “I know that, for some reason, you take your interpretation of her own work over hers,” the caller asked, “but I wonder if, with some reflection, you’ll decide that you should actually formally withdraw” the claim that Rovner’s reporting supports the plaintiffs’ view in King.
Cannon, however, was still unmoved. “If you can convince me that Julie’s interpretation of her own story is not contradicted by her own story, then I’ll be happy to make the change that you suggest.” Nevertheless, Cannon claimed, “no one has been able to do that, not even Julie herself.”
You don’t understand what you wrote, young lady!
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