“Millions of low- and moderate-income people who signed up for health insurance with the help of federal tax-credit subsidies could find themselves without coverage or facing big premium bills if a destructive decision handed down by a federal appeals court in Washington on Tuesday is not reversed,” writes The New York Times Editorial Board. The ruling, which The Board calls “mindless and harmful,” seized on “poorly drafted” language in the Affordable Care Act to end subsidies in the states that opted not to set up a state health exchange and instead relied on the federal exchange. “It defies common sense to think that Congress really intended that there be no subsidies at all in 36 states,” The Board writes. For now, the outcome is unclear: A second federal appeals court panel ruled the opposite way just a few hours later and the Obama administration is expected to appeal the first decision. “Consumers are expected to retain their coverage and tax credits while this and similar suits in other jurisdictions wend their way through the court system.” In future decisions, The Board calls for “common sense in interpreting the law, not ideological opposition to Obamacare.”
Other significant viewpoints from around the world:
“To the ghastly crime of shooting down 298 civilians aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 on Thursday, Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine added the unspeakable insult of preventing immediate access to the crash site,” writes The Boston Globe. “There is no justification for such disgraceful and disrespectful abuse of the passengers’ remains.” Delays and looting of passengers’ belongings have compromised any investigation that will follow. Nevertheless, “there is no shortage of evidence” that the plane was shot down thanks to Russian support for separatists. “Bringing that crisis to an end is of the utmost priority.”
“Indonesia is the fourth most populous country, the third largest democracy, and the biggest Muslim nation,” writes The Guardian. “Because of its size and importance,” the country’s presidential elections represent “massive” proof that “democracy can work as well in Muslim societies as in others.” The victory of Joko Widodo, though still disputed by his opponent, “represents a further advance in Indonesian political life. It means that for the first time a person with no direct connections with the older, authoritarian era will occupy the country’s highest office.” This result promotes the “sense that a new chapter has now begun in Indonesia.”
Rick Perry has said he will deploy a thousand Texas National Guard troops to the border at a cost of $12 million a month. “That would be making a big political show of securing a border that is already highly and expertly patrolled,” writes The San Antonio Express-News Editorial Board. With Central American children turning themselves over to Border Patrol agents and Texas “turning away millions in federal money to expand Medicaid and give insurance coverage to Texans,” Perry’s order is an ineffectual waste of money and “a case of presidential opportunism.”
The identification of a body found in a plum field in Suncheon ends the two-month manhunt for Yoo Byung-eun, the de facto owner of the ferry that sunk off the coast of South Korea in April. But the search should not have taken this long and “police and prosecutors deserve harsh criticism for being incompetent and negligent,” argues The Korea Times. “139 people had been arrested over the ferry catastrophe, but the failure to capture Yoo fuels concern that further fact-finding will hit a snag.” The accident left 300 people, mostly high school students, dead or missing and the probe into possible wrongdoings must proceed quickly despite the power and influence of those under investigation. “It will certainly be a national shame if the truth behind the ferry tragedy remains hidden.”