UPDATE: The ACA Oral Arguments in SCOTUS are wrapped.

I will be on TV shortly & throughout the day. But I will drop some notes below shortly.
My summary is that the Trump Administration Justice Department did not make the sale.

I suspect that will be the consensus based on the Justices asked but no guarantees.
So put aside all the human arguments— the stupidity and the cruelty of ending the ACA. In a pandemic. Today is a day for structural legal arguments.
The Trump lawyer has to prove 3 things. All 3 of them.
1- They have standing (ie, how are they harmed by paying $0)
2- The mandate is unconstitutional
3- The mandate is not “severance” from the merits of the law

None of the 3 are easy arguments.
The weakest of the arguments is the third— that even if there is standing & the $0 mandate is unconstitutional— that the ACA should go entirely.

And neither Roberts nor Kavanaugh seemed to by the argument.
If that’s right, the implication is that even if they could prove the first 2 points, you would just surgically remove the mandate of $0. Which is what Congress intended to do and actually did.
But the other arguments— standing?? The Fed Govt constantly argues no one has standing. The twisted reading that suggests these states are injured is laughable. The bulk of the conversation was here.
Bottom line: this isn’t a done deal. There are still risks. Still possible to carve other things in as unconstitutional even if this is the right reading. But the job for the Trump/Texas lawyers just got a lot harder.

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More from @ASlavitt

11 Nov
Today @ScottGottliebMD and I spoke with all 50 states about the current state, challenges & outlook of the pandemic.

Will summarize here. Follow if interested.
Scott’s summarized where we are as the equivalent of March 15%- it’s about to get much much worse. 1/
Nursing home deaths are growing rampant. 2000 last week at least.

I spoke to the person who oversees nursing home safety. They are EXTREMELY worried.
Read 14 tweets
11 Nov
COVID Update November 10: The next 3 months are essential in the COVID battle. 1/
The next 3 months will be the worst period of the virus. We are living in the horrible exponential phase of growth of the virus in the midst of a moment of the greatest promise. 2/
130,000 daily cases.
46 states have uncontrolled growth.
16 states have the potential ICU capacity concerns. 3/
Read 15 tweets
9 Nov
COVID Update November 9: Today is the day for some joy.

I have talked to @EricTopol @larrybrilliant and 3 other world class scientists about the new vaccine candidate.

Follow here if interested.
Sorry finishing up one more convo then will tweet. 2/
It feels like we had 4 years if nothing but shitty news & all our good news was saved up for one week.

What’s up with that? 3/
Read 25 tweets
9 Nov
BREAKING: Pfizer COVID vaccine independent report released showing 90% effectiveness.

More to come....
44,000 person trial*
94 cases
9 cases among ppl w/ 2 shots (protocol)
No serious safety issues
All ages

70 more cases needed for completion
*Not peer reviewed

Concurrent manufacturing for 50 mm doses target year end to scale up to over 1 billion in 2021

Not part of Op Warp Speed
Pricing unknown
Read 4 tweets
7 Nov
MY UPDATE TONIGHT: What just changed.
Executive orders and control of the agencies has done significant damage to America. That’s going to change.
Medicaid work requirements — done.
Read 25 tweets
6 Nov
COVID Update November 6: This is a grim time for our country. We may be headed for close to a 9/11 numbers of daily deaths.

What we need most now... 1/
We are already half way there and winter hasn’t started. What do we do about it? 2/
1. We need a re-commitment to democracy & to each other. A divided country leads to a prolonged outbreak.

Each 10% of people that aren’t complaint add 100,000 more lost lives. 3/
Read 17 tweets

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