Listening to the Supreme Court hearings on Obamacare. . .

I do enjoy watching the semi-annual GOP fainting couch episode, regarding Obama's comments about the court.

I wonder if any of them remember past comments that people they supported have made, regarding the court? Anyone remember this gem?



Can you guess who that was?

Cycloptichorn

Let me state this point even more strongly. With the blessing of the Constitution, Congress can force you to pay taxes and spend them on whatever it deems to promote the general welfare. That's Alexander Hamilton's 1791 interpretation of the general-welfare clause. The Supreme Court has endorsed it over James Madison's more libertarian interpretation in United States v. Butler (1936). Even the litigants against Obamacare aren't asking the Supreme Court to overrule Butler. The extent of Congress's taxing and spending power is well-established.

If Congress has the general power to tax and to spend the taxes on whatever it concludes will serve the general welfare, that implies a particular power. It implies the power to tax and to allow deductions for what people spend on their healthcare. As to the money from those who don't buy insurance and hence don't claim the deduction, Congress can still spend it on the general welfare as it defines it. That's what Obamacare does. Granted, it may use different nomenclature like "noncompliance penalty". But that's a distinction without a constitutional difference. Obamacare validly exercises Congress's power to tax.

This whole thing is silly. Let's face it. In every court decision, the other side will blast the court for getting it wrong. That is reality. For either side to pretend otherwise is a bit disingenuous.

Ha! (The Watergate reference was a giveaway though.)

I don't know if anyone mentioned this before.

James Carville said that a negative decision by the court would be a huge gift to the Dems. Any such negative decision would be owned by the GOP. Health-care costs would surely soar and the GOP would be blamed. The Dems had at least made an effort to reform the system and lower costs.

Gotta agree with Thomas. The US government has forced me to pay taxes for a couple wars I didn't support and made me complicit in the deaths of something over a million people. I see no reason why they can't force me to pay for keeping people alive instead. It's kind of a nice change.

Back in March (at the end of the 3 days of testimony) Tom Goldstein, founder of Scotusblog, announced his opinion that the ACA would be upheld by the Supreme Court by a vote of 6-3.

Last week, speaking from the steps of the Court, he's still of the opinion that there's a "better than 50/50 chance" that the law will be upheld in its entirety.

I think we'll know for sure this coming week.

That's a pretty safe bet, considering that the term ends this week. The justices could, of course, kick it over to next term to hear more arguments (that's what they did with Citizens United), but they already heard three days of oral argument on this case, so it's very unlikely that they'll do that.

This week at the Court
By Kali Borkoski

On Monday we expect orders from the June 21 Conference as well as opinions in argued cases. Our list of “Petitions to watch” for that conference is here. Monday is the last day before the summer recess on which the Court is scheduled to sit to issue decisions, but it is likely that additional decision days will be added to the Court’s schedule for the week. We will update our “Editor’s Note” to reflect any additional decision days once that information becomes available. Assuming that the Court will issue one opinion for the health care cases, we expect the Court to issue six more opinions before it recesses for the summer.

On Monday, and for any other opinion days scheduled this week, we will begin live blogging in advance of the Court’s ten o’clock announcements. For fastest access to the Live Blog, please use this address: scotusblog.wpengine.com. More information about our plan for covering the health care decision, including a roster of guest contributors who will be analyzing the opinion for the blog, is available here. We are also looking forward to several guest contributions analyzing the decision in Arizona v. United States.

We'll all know soon enough, but I have a hard time seeing how the court could uphold the mandate for universal coverage. This is clearly something that individual states can do, but which is not (by a reasonable - to me- interpretation of the eneumerated powers) allowed to the Federal government) under the Constitution. The earlier reports and recordings of the dialogue between Justices and attorneys during oral arguments, make it failly clear that the Justices were focused on this point. Given that, a vote to uphold the mandate appears unlikely to me.

[Updated at 10:06 a.m. ET] In a landmark decision that will impact the nation for decades, the Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a key provision of President Barack Obama's health care law, ruling that requiring people to have health insurance violates the Constitution.

Got a link, McGentrix?

per CNN --

I just heard on MSNBC that the court upheld the mandate based on taxing authority with Roberts having the deciding vote. Probably too soon for a link

A tremendous victory for Obama in an election year.

And for all of us.

Cycloptichorn

The other questions and verdict are more confusing.

Apparently the court rejected mandatory Medicaid expansion.

I think this shows that bad oral arguments don't necessarily lose cases. From all accounts, Solicitor General Donald Verilli did a terrible job at oral argument, especially on the question of whether the individual mandate constituted a tax. Nevertheless, it appears the majority approved of the ACA precisely on those grounds.

The opinion is on the web:

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-393c3a2.pdf