Slashdot Mirror
Supreme Court Upholds Key Obamacare Subsidies
HughPickens.com writes: Retuers reports that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled 6 — 3 in favor of the nationwide availability of tax subsidies that are crucial to the implementation of President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law, handing a major victory to the president. It marked the second time in three years that the high court ruled against a major challenge to the law brought by conservatives seeking to gut it.
"Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them," wrote Chief Justice Roberts in the majority opinion (PDF). He added that nationwide availability of the credits is required to "avoid the type of calamitous result that Congress plainly meant to avoid." The ruling will come as a major relief to Obama as he seeks to ensure that his legacy legislative achievement is implemented effectively and survives political and legal attacks before he leaves office in early 2017. Justice Antonin Scalia took the relatively rare step of reading a summary of his dissenting opinion from the bench. "We really should start calling the law SCOTUScare," said Scalia referencing the court's earlier decision upholding the constitutionality of the law.
"Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them," wrote Chief Justice Roberts in the majority opinion (PDF). He added that nationwide availability of the credits is required to "avoid the type of calamitous result that Congress plainly meant to avoid." The ruling will come as a major relief to Obama as he seeks to ensure that his legacy legislative achievement is implemented effectively and survives political and legal attacks before he leaves office in early 2017. Justice Antonin Scalia took the relatively rare step of reading a summary of his dissenting opinion from the bench. "We really should start calling the law SCOTUScare," said Scalia referencing the court's earlier decision upholding the constitutionality of the law.
That is of course quite absurd, and the Court's 21 pages of explanation make it no less so.
You would think the answer would be obviousâ"so obvious there would hardly be a need for the Supreme Court to hear a case about it.
I particularly enjoy seeing him jump on the conspiracy bandwagon with this tasty morsel:
But normal rules of interpretation seem always to yield to the overriding principle of the present Court: The Affordable Care Act must be saved.
(Understatement, thy name is an opinion on the Afford- able Care Act!)
This little circular snippet is fun as well:
Who would ever have dreamt that âoeExchange established by the Stateâ means âoeExchange established by the State or the Federal Government â?
Considering he is a known fan of constitutional amendments where "state" means "federal government". Of course, here it doesn't matter because .... well, whatever.
The Court's next bit of interpretive jiggery-pokery
For its next defense of the indefensible
Well, it is good to know that he clearly didn't have any strong opinions on the matter before the case made it to the bench. After all, a predetermined judiciary is what justice is all about in this country, is it not? I would say that he was posturing himself for a new career with Fox News, but there is no good reason for him to do that, being as he already has a job for life.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
“Words no longer have meaning if an Exchange that is not established by a State is ‘established by the State.’ Under all the usual rules of interpretation, in short, the Government should lose this case. But normal rules of interpretation seem always to yield to the overriding principle of the present Court: The Affordable Care Act must be saved.” If SCOTUS can twist these words what stops them from twisting ANY words?
it is the fact that 3 judges actually sided with the idea that this was not legal based on wording.
It means that these 3 did not look at, nor care, about intentions. In addition, even looking at the wording, and taking it to this extreme, shows that these 3 are working hard to legislate via the bench.
These 3 judges are some of the WORST that America has ever had who puts their politcs over the constitution or what our framers wanted.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
A small part of me wanted to see this go down, just to watch the shitstorm that resulted and see the Republicans claim that it wasn't their fault.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
In other words, the majority's decision was based not on the law itself, but on its effects and/or would-be effects.
Not one Congressman has read the law in full — not before it was passed, not after. It is too long and too complicated.
Though it is acceptable for courts to turn to legislative intent sometimes, that's specifically reserved to cases, where the laws language is unclear.
That was not the case here — as written, the law clearly only allows subsidies for residents of those states, that have set up "health exchanges" of their own. Whether that was the intent of the law-makers or not is irrelevant. The court's decision is wrong.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
This astonishing track record bears repeating: Only 16 out of 50 states chose to create state health exchanges, even though the law stated that by not doing the citizens of the remaining 34 states would not get federal subsidies (the whole point of the Supreme Court case). Yet, of those 16 that did create exchanges, more than half have failed to work or have gone over budget, after wasting more than $4 billion in federal funds. On top of that, three are now under investigation.
If SCOTUS can twist these words what stops them from twisting ANY words?
Except that if "State", only means individual states, then many of the constitutional amendments - including the second - fall apart on the federal level.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
In other words, the majority's decision was based not on the law itself, but on its effects and/or would-be effects.
Yes. In the real world SCOTUS looks closely at what impact their decision will have. "not based on the law itself" is a ridiculous criticism--they are being *asked* what the law is, and part of deciding what the law is when there is any ambiguity or potentially counterintuitive result is to figure out what are the consequences if the law is way X vs. way Y.
That's why SCOTUS often considers "administrability" when they are making decisions. It's a fundamental part of how the court operates. Would you rather they kill people Congress didn't intend to kill or that they say "this is a typo and in the context of what you are doing, it's pretty damn clear you would have intended this to mean X if you had bothered to read the law you wrote."
There is zero ambiguity here in terms of what Congress intended; it's clear that a law was poorly drafted. This is a not a maybe-they-meant-Y situation, this is a "hey, they accidentally used a sentence that probably says Y."
If SCOTUS can twist these words what stops them from twisting ANY words?
Except that if "State", only means individual states, then many of the constitutional amendments - including the second - fall apart on the federal level.
That's why in laws (especially 2400 page monstrosities like this one) they have sections on Definitions to specifically say whether "State" means "50 States", "50 States + US Territories like Puerto Rico", or "50 States + Territories + District of Columbia", etc.
In this case, the law was originally drafted to deal with State-level exchanges. A Federal exchange was an afterthought one they didn't expect/hope would be used. (And according to Gruber, was intentionally left out of this clause.) Whatever the case, the courts should be rewriting when it's a clear cut, cut-and-dried case of an error. As long as there's a plausible rationale for why the text is the way it is ("To discourage States from relying on the Federal exchange, at the cost of the Federal funding that we'd otherwise be giving to the citizens of that State to help with the insurance fee we're forcing them to pay"), we should be relying on the text.
Typos can indeed lead to ludicrous conclusions that can be corrected judicially. This was not one of them.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
Viewing these words as a mistake is the simplest interpretation of the law. The other option is to re-interpret lots of other sections, and change the law to be at odds with how the people writing it meant for it to be interpreted.
The writers of the law clearly wanted to establish state exchanges for any state that wanted them, and a federal exchange for any state that didn't want to roll its own, and that all of these exchanges do the same thing. This might not be apparent in that little snippet, but it's very much apparent in the text of the law itself.
It's not as though the SCOTUS majority is pulling meaning out of nowhere for just this passage. Quite the contrary, they'd have had to re-interpret a lot of text to infer that the law was written so as to exclude subsidies for the federal exchange.
Since the employer mandate has not kicked in yet I am pretty sure that is not the ACAs fault.
I also do not believe that yur coverage went up that much.
Also an illegal alien cannot get healhcare for free in general, you are making shit up.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
The court doesn't need to twist anything. They use week established rules of construction. This is necessary because a single textual document will never convey every nuance.
"We begin with the familiar canon of statutory construction that the starting point for interpreting a statute is the language of the statute itself. Absent a clearly expressed legislative intention to the contrary, that language must ordinarily be regarded as conclusive.:" Consumer Product Safety Commission et al. v. GTE Sylvania, Inc. et al.,447 U.S. 102 (1980).
But the language of the statue has to be understood as a whole.
For example, noscitur a sociis ("a word is known by the company it keeps"):
When a word is ambiguous, its meaning may be determined by reference to the rest of the statute.
That's exactly what the Court did here, and is exactly what most reasonable humans do in establishing the meaning of any word or words.
Except there's a definitions section to the law that defines the State as "one of the 50 states". But go ahead. Ignore that.
is stupid enough to leave the health of its citizens up to the vagaries of the profit motive? How many assets does a a nation have that are more valuable than a healthy population?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
No, it is a twisted interpretation of the law. "The state" is used seven times in the law and this is the only instance where the court has decided it must mean the sate and the federal government.
Ultimately I believe that the court ruled incorrectly here. The way this should have been handled is that the court should have ruled based on the law as written. The thing is, if our political system wasn't so messed up it would have never reached the supreme court. Congress would have simply fixed the law itself to clarify the actual intent and life would have gone on. Although it is pretty clear what the intent was in this circumstance I think it is dangerous to allow for that broad of discretion for the judicial branch.
... I'm not a fan of Obamacare. In fact, that's putting it lightly. However, I think the court got it right on this one. Trying to get a part of the law thrown out on a technicality in an effort to get the law to implode on itself and hurt the American people is not the right way to get the law repealed.
The way to get the law repealed is for Congress to repeal it. If they don't have the majority yet to do it, then we need to win people (and seats in Congress) over to our side.
Note: my criticism does not not apply to the earlier challenge which, while perhaps weaker, was more legitimate in questioning the legality of the law on constitutional grounds. This challenge amounted to "nuh uh because you wrote State but you should have written State or Federal, hah!" Be glad you don't live in a world where courts always rule strictly on literal interpretations. That would be a really, really shitty world.
"The other option is to re-interpret lots of other sections, and change the law to be at odds with how the people writing it meant for it to be interpreted"
I think I read that book in high-school. Wasn't it called 1984?
The intent matters just as much as the plain language. Scalia himself has defended that intent matters more than plain language multiple times including pulling out 300 year old dictionaries. The affirming verdict itself quotes Scalia from the last ruling where he completely contradicts what he claims in this dissent. He's an inconsistent little troll, he rules whatever he wants, not what the constitution requires.
Wickard vs Filburn.
There ya go.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
The writers of the law clearly wanted to establish state exchanges for any state that wanted them, and a federal exchange for any state that didn't want to roll its own, and that all of these exchanges do the same thing.
Johnathan Gruber didn't seem to think so. He bragged that the idea was to intimidate conservative states into exchanges by withholding subsidies from citizens of states which declined to create them.
"The job of the federal courts is not to re-write law but to affirm or strike down laws which are or are not Constitutional."
Actually, Judicial Review is NOT in the Constitution. But when it happened it was accepted and so it is now enshrined.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
The act uses the term "the state", not "a state". The opinion of authors was that if they had a chance to rewrite it, they'd make it clear "the state" referred to the federal government. Scalia himself has reasoned cases on Congressional acts that said the entire act must be looked at to get the meaning of the terms. He cannot very well turn around now and claim the narrow interpretation he wants simply because he doesn't like the act.
obamacare is obviously grotesque
but what it does is plainly acknowledge that american healthcare is an grossly inefficient piece of shit. our system is insanely expensive and people avoid basic healthcare. because of the misguided notion that capitalism has anything to do with a basic right. there is no competition in healthcare, it is a *natural monopoly* (look it up, retards). all we will ever get in the system that makes believe there is competition, because free market fairies and unicorns, is rent seeking parasites funneling money off for no added benefit, and paying congresscritters top keep it that way. and of course propagandized fox news morons believing the scaremongering ignorance that they shovel out should we try to get a better system
all of our social and economic peers spend A TENTH OR LESS WHAT WE SPEND, AND HAVE FAR BETTER HEALTH OUTCOMES. ask any canadian, british, french, german, japanese, australian: our system scares the hell out of them, they shake their heads in horror at what americans have to put up with. it's not about "freedom" unless you wish to be free from quality low cost healthcare (if you don't want to buy health insurance, you're basically saying you want to be a freeloader and avoid your bill... an irresponsible ignorant douchebag, not a freedom fighter)
republicans kick and scream. and offer nothing better
because they don't want to admit that they are ideologically bankrupt on the question. instead of admitting they are wrong, they have no problem with americans having extremely expensive, shoddy healthcare, and dying too early and broke. there's your "death panels": lower middle class? fuck you, go bankrupt and die
again, obamacare is horribly imperfect, but it's the first step and a basic acknowledgment of how broken our system is
and now we must take the other 1,000 steps we need to take to reach single payer universal healthcare, the only fucking answer that makes any fucking sense on the subject of a functional healthcare system
i'm sorry so many americans are so fucking stupid and ideologically blinded that they would rather have extremely expensive healthcare or just plain die, rather taen understand or admit the fucking obvious. but you morons won't hold us back from what is obvious to anyone moderately intelligent on the topic and not propagandized by right leaning media lies
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"The act uses the term "the state", not "a state". "
Maybe elsewhere, but not in the context that was being litigated: "established by a State".
Implied powers. Their authority is spelled out in the constitution -- how it was to be exercised was not. But that's true for all three branches of our government.
As long as there's a plausible rationale for why the text is the way it is ...
The reason the text is the way it is, is because of the election of Scott Brown to fill the seat of the recently deceased Ted Kennedy. The Democrats lost their 60 seat super-majority required to override a filibuster. So congress had to pass the bill "as is" with no changes or edits. It was either a flawed law or no law.
Regardless, I'm pretty sure they passed it without reading it. And not because, say, they wouldn't have passed it if they did; rather, because the bill as a whole is entirely unreadable.
Help fight poverty: Punch a poor person.
Unfortunately, Congress is ceding power to both the Executive and Legislative that can only weaken our rights and liberty. They are becoming less and less relevant.
Uh, unless things have changed around here, Congress IS the Legislative branch of the US Federal government.
"A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding."
Let's watch a bunch of non-lawyers argue which ignorant lack of understanding of the law shows why the Supreme Court is wrong.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
Ayup. I mis-typed. That should read "Congress is ceding power to both the Executive and Judiciary".
My bad.
Repeal the 17th amendment. At least you would have one house that isn't campaigning all the type.
IMO, the 17th broke a fundamental safeguard of our republic.
I find it interesting that the principles of the affordable care act were almost entirely conceived of and proposed by the Republican part back in the 90s in response to the Clinton health care reform initiative which failed. And no matter what they claim, a Republican administration in Mass (Romney) largely implemented much of the ACA on a state level and it worked very well indeed. Why it would suddenly become so repulsive to Republicans I do not know.
During the time of the passage of the ACA, my coworker, who was going through cancer treatment and other health issues read the bill in its entirety and he felt it was not at all perfect but it was better than what we had. A lot of the FUD going around (still is) was just that. He was comfortable with the bill as passed, even if the majority of congress critters seemed to not be familiar with it. I'm glad the supreme court upheld it. It the Republicrats want to get rid of it, they need to do it the proper way, and replace it with something better. No, going back to the status quo will not work. If they would propose a better, more equitable plan, I would support it. But so far they seem to be offering absolutely nothing. If they manage to get the White House, it will be over a campaign promise to roll things back to the good old days and then do absolutely nothing. The last part sounds good actually.
During the FUD and absolute crap going around during the passage of the ACA, many people talked about socialized systems in other countries (who was it that said they'd move to Canada to get away from the ACA?). The irony of all that is that between the VA, Medicare, and Medicaid, the US gov't runs the largest socialized healthcare system in the world. And it's one of the most expensive. Maybe the gov't should merge them all together into one program, and then require all federal employees, including elected officials and the president and all his advisors to use it as their primary health care insurance provider and system. You can bet all the problems would clear up in a a matter of months! And it just might end up being a really good program.
Most of the comments here seem to be saying that the case was decided incorrectly because the text of the law was clear and the intent doesn't matter. However, there are lots of other cases where the text of the law is equally clear and yet SCOTUS has ruled that intent matters. Let's start with the First Amendment. It's obvious that slander laws run afoul of the plain text of the First Amendment. Which part of "Congress shall make no law..." is unclear? None at all. Yet SCOTUS has ruled slander laws are allowed, as well as laws preventing inciting a riot (e.g., yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater).
For another example near and dear to conservatives' hearts, consider the Second Amendment. The Roberts court has ruled (District of Columbia vs. Heller, 2008) that the Second Amendment establishes an individual right to carry arms, despite the fact the amendment only mentions carrying arms in the context of a militia.
With the current case, the intent of the law was clear (and most of the drafters are still around to ask), so that's what SCOTUS used. Judges aren't just implementations of parsing algorithms that spit out yes or no results based on the text of the laws.
No but having only taxpayers able to vote would likely be a good idea.
Typos can indeed lead to ludicrous conclusions that can be corrected judicially. This was not one of them.
Apparently, six justices disagree with you...
But if six judges disagreed with you, and they happened to rule against your favored political party, would you placidly accept their decision?
Yes. That's how this works. Part of the function of the Supreme Court is to do what *they* interpret as correct WRT to the law and Constitution, not the most popular or the wishes of the masses or majority.
Congress is free to amend or write a new law - but if they weren't spoiled, selfish children, they would have done that already. They could have easily clarified this, but didn't because Republicans would have used the opportunity to destroy the ACA rather than helping to make it even a little better -- especially important in light of the *fact* that the Republicans have no alternative to the ACA, except to get rid of it. Don't know why they don't want to keep the poor and middle class from getting health insurance...
The person who brought this particular suit is special kind of asshole as he has admitted he has no personal standing as he is already eligible for VA or Medicare coverage - so nice for them to have *his* Universal Healthcare Coverage taken care of...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
"Its doing neither."
Yes it is. With regards to the judiciary, they are deliberately affirming judicial nominations who believe in the idea of re-interpreting the constitution -- and in the extreme, basically writing law themselves.
" so now the Judiciary branch made the decision that America lives in the real world"
Sorry, but when they can bend over backwards and re-define eminent domain to allow the government to take private property from a citizen and force a sale to another private citizen or entity for the sole purpose of the enrichment of the government coffers we've jumped the shark.
That's explicitly legal. The federal highway funds have been similarly held hostage for 50+ years, without a successful challenge. Forcing speed limits, seatbelt laws, drinking laws, and all sorts of other "unconstitutional" things, by extorting the states to do them themselves.
Learn to love Alaska
The Bush/Gore case was, I think, the most legally flawed SCOTUS decision of the past 25 years. Today's ruling is, however, in the top 20 of most legally flawed SCOTUS decisions of the past 25 years.
They should have just refused to hear the Bush/Gore case when it was presented and, if four justices voted to grant cert, the rest should have ruled in the majority that the case was, at that time, not ripe. Yes, in a few weeks, they would likely have had a legitimate case before them and the correct legal decision would have resulted in the same outcome. When the second case came before them, the deadline for certification would have passed and the court should have ruled THEN that the only valid indication of the will of the voters was the original count since no recount had met the criteria set down in the law and Florida must either certify that count or refuse to certify any count (and a few weeks later possibly be faced with addressing what the law says about how to handle the case of a state refusing to certify election results for a Presidential election).
At least the Bush/Gore case was likely to become a Constitutional issue where SCOTUS appropriately would exercise more latitude because the Constitution generally lacks much detail and because there is no realistic way to change it quickly to add detail that was left out or resolve ambiguities. Federal statutory law, on the other hand, is easy to change (consider how many words are in bill signed each year by the President) and can be done quickly without election or concurrence of the states. In this PPACA case, the court substituted their opinion instead of letting the legislative branch "fix" the law if they felt it needed "fixing".
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
This ruling is actually very good for individual freedom. I'm happy to see that the supreme court made an intelligent ruling. I'm 54 and semi-retired. I have pre-existing conditions and if we went back to the way things used to work, I'd have to become employed full time again, or emigrate to the UK where I also
have citizenship.
I hate everything American employment stands for. Age discrimination, employment-at-will, invention agreements, covenants not to compete, and binding arbitration to name a few.
As a liberal leaning independent I completely agree with you. Most Amendments clarify or guarantee rights that are not addressed in the constitution, the 17th flat out dumps an entire section of Article I. Usually not a good idea to change the fundamental functioning of the way the government works when it was designed to work a specific way.
I don't know what you are talking about and evidently neither do you. Congress has voted to remove that wording several times now. Even Obama references those attempts.
And no. Congress was definitely not ambiguous in the wording on this. Supports made mention of it as a tool to force republican governors to create state exchanges when promoting the law to supporters.
This is twice now that scotus has changed plain language wording or ignored it altogether in this law in order to keep it alive.
And happening so fast, I can't explain it.
We have this court now, pretty much ignoring the constitution on this law, it really should have been a given, but they seemed more interested in not causing chaos for a lot of people that would have been thrown off the federal dole on this.
We've seen the Rebel flag suddenly become a horrible symbol of oppression, and hate and vilified all of a sudden and yanked even from online stores and private individual sales on ebay.
It is now going so far that there seems to be a rush to destroy history, and take down all statues or anything of confederate soldiers...things no one had ever previously thought were any type of hate symbol, but merely marks of history. I'm shocked in New Orleans there is actual talk of taking down the statue and renaming Lee Circle, an icon of the city for many many many years. That and other statues and landmarks of the city. I mean, if you want to re-write history, lets mow down the French Quarter entirely, I mean lots of slaves were sold through there and used there...etc. Where does it stop?
I'm just shocked at the way folks here are laying down and how fast this is rolling over tradition and history, especially things that have NEVER before been thought to be racist or troubling for anyone....but now the baby is being thrown out with the bath. History...if nothing else, it should remain as a reminder.
The old saying goes...."those that forget history are bound to repeat it".
I'm just flabbergasted that some things are moving this fast, and this isn't all for the better.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
What's a dark day is when people are incapable of using their brains to see objectively reality. This one line that you have your panties in a knot about is 4 words out of tens of thousands, thousands of which explicitly reference these subsidies being available to everyone. Being a fucking idiot, and focusing on 4 words, when everywhere else those words are shown to have an incorrect LITERAL meaning (although a correct LEGAL meaning...as in "the state" meaning government), is asinine to the extreme, and a position that only fucking morons would take. I'm sorry you've bought into the teabagger hysteria of lies and deceit; please, grow a fucking brain and use it.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
So you did what the guy who wrote "the State" instead of "the State or Secretary" did? Why shouldn't we hold you to your mistake, instead of the correction? It's pretty obvious what you meant, but what if slashdot editors banned you before you had a chance to correct yourself, should we stand on a strict, literal interpretation of your comment? Or can we all agree that you made a simple mistake, and interpret your words as you obviously meant them?
I don't know where you are from, but it has never been that in my life, nor the people I've known and grown up with all my life.
It has never been thought of or used in a racist or threatening manner growing up in the south in my experience.
It was just a common symbol of living in the south, southern pride...a backdrop at a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert...the top of the General Lee.
None of those things are racist or hateful....
I think this uproar is just caused mostly by one sad picture of that jackass that killed those innocent church goers and had one picture I"ve seen of him holding a small Rebel Battle Flag....but now it is being fanned by the 24/7 news channels (coincidentally all based in the northeast) that have to have something new to churn up the viewers, and it is the "next" bandwagon for the social medial addicted millenials to jump on board with as the next cause for some form of 'justice".
What's next? Do we mow down all symbols of the civil war? Anything confederate history related? Anything slave related?
Do we mow down the French Quarter in New Orleans? I mean, a LOT of slaves were bought, sold and owned there. What about the Thomas Jefferson? He was quite the slave owner...should we burn down Monticello? Raze the Jefferson memorial in DC? Change the money?
Where does it stop?
This rebel flag being a symbol of oppression, racism or hate is a VERY RECENT thing....if you think otherwise, you are not a very old person and have not grown up with the experience of it and knowing it of the past 50+ years.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
As someone that has grown up in the south and is more than a few years old...no, that is not the case.
This uproar and associated meanings with the Rebel Battle Flag is a recent occurrence. I grew up with it and it was never that way....it was a backdrop for a Lynyrd Skynryd concert, or the top of the General Lee. Harmless symbols of southern pride.
All this because one jackass that killed a bunch of innocent people had a picture of him holding a small version of it. Sad...but these days, it takes so very little to have the social media addicts jump on the bandwagon of the month....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........