Obamacare hits the Supreme Court today: What will the Justices rule on?

[Little-Acorn]

From a friend of mine that is a Doctor:

"So, my question to you all is this: if some aspect of your jobs required (not volunteer) you to provide your time, skill and labor upon demand without remuneration (or forced you to accept reimbursement so low that it didn't even remotely cover your costs) or face the penalty of law, how would you respond? How would this work if we were talking about a food store, or a clothing store, or any other service (plummets, hvac guys, builders)? After all, food, clothing, housing and heat are all 'required' and necessary...?"

I would direct his attention to the 13th amendment which forbids slavery or involuntary servitude; and then wish him a good day and walk away.

 

[Little-Acorn]

DAY 2:

Sounds like the justices who normally uphold the Constitution, are directing their questions that way on Tuesday as Oral Arguments focus on the mandate.

Predictably, some of the leftist justices are trying to worm their way out of it. But their arguments seem to be that (in their opinion) striking down Obamacare may be bad for the country; NOT whether striking down Obamacare would be required by the Supreme Law of the Land.

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http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74525.html

Conservative justices skeptical of individual mandate

by CARRIE BUDOFF BROWN and JOSH GERSTEIN
3/27/12 11:07 AM EDT Updated: 3/27/12 12:44 PM EDT

Conservative justices attacked the central provision of President Barack Obama’s health care law Tuesday, expressing deep skepticism that the government can force Americans to buy insurance.

On the second day of oral arguments, the Supreme Court grappled with the linchpin of the legislation — the individual mandate.

Critics of the law argue that if the U.S. government can require Americans to buy medical insurance, it could require virtually anything else that might improve health or lower health care costs, like forcing Americans to join a gym or buy broccoli.

A potential swing vote on the court, Justice Anthony Kennedy, turned to that point early in Tuesday’s session, asking Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr. if the government could require purchase of certain food.

“Here the government is saying the federal government has a duty to tell citizens it must act,” Kennedy said, and that changes the relationship between the government and the person “in a fundamental way.”

Verrilli was also asked if the government could require the purchase of cellular phones or burial insurance.

Chief Justice John Roberts argued that if the court says Congress can regulate anything people buy just because of how they pay for it, “all bets are off.”

Today it is health insurance, he said, and then “something else in the next case.”

“Once we accept the principle, I don’t see why Congress’s power is limited,” Roberts said.

The aggressive questioning from conservative justices led Tom Goldstein, the publisher of SCOTUSblog and a prominent Supreme Court litigator, to declare that “there is no fifth vote yet” for the mandate.

“The individual mandate is in trouble—significant trouble,” he said. “The conservatives all express skepticism, some significant.”

During the early questioning, at least three of of the liberal justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor, challenged the conservative wing.

Ginsburg argued that forcing people to buy food is different than requiring them to purchase insurance, citing a friend-of-the-court briefing that uncompensated care leads to higher costs for all consumers. Uninsured people are passing their costs on to others, and that’s why Congress can regulate them, Ginsburg suggested.

At stake in Tuesday’s arguments is not just the individual mandate but the potential resolution to a bitter political fight between Democrats and Republicans over the limits of government power when it comes to health care.

 

[dogtowner]

If its illegal it cannot be good for the country. Kill it and try again. See that you actually do something that might actually make healthcare more affordable next time.

 

[Little-Acorn]

Here are transcripts from the Oral Aguments on Tuesday, Day 2:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74537.html

Check out the pages around Pages 68 thru 76 and its neighbors. Justices Kagan and Sotomayor are definitely doing the jobs they were appointed to do. On these pages, they go far beyond the usual asking questions. They are instructing Obama's lawyers on what arguments to use, to win their points and enable a vote upholding Obamacare.

I wish, back when I was in school and taking tests, that I had had the class professor standing by my side and telling me how to answer the problems in the test.

 

[steveox]

They should tell Congress to do the law all over again,,And no new business until Congress passes the health care law the correct way. That means when Republicans try to pass the law and Harry Reid blocks it Democrat senators will be held accountable into the next election.

 

[Little-Acorn]

DAY 3:

Here's transcripts from at least the morning of Wednesday's oral arguments. I guess there may be more coming out later. Haven't had time to read much this morning, it's hell at work today.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74596.html

The first few pages document Sotomayor's lecturing one of the anti-Obamacare lawyers, that Obamacare will work just fine, even without the mandate, as long as it's fine-tuned just right. She even interrupts him and tries to steer his replies.

I wonder if/when she will later stop arguing one side of the case, and become a Supreme Court Justice again. But she's definitely doing the job Obama appointed her to do: Promote liberalism wherever and whenever she can, "I swear to defend the Constitution" oath be damned.

A few excerpts:

MR. CLEMENT:If you do not have the individual mandate to force people into the market then community rating and guaranteed-issue will cause the cost of premiums to skyrocket. We can debate the order of magnitude of that but we can't debate that the direction will be upward. We also can't debate -

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: Counsel, that may well be true. The economists are going back and forth on that issue, and the figures vary from up 10 percent to up 30. We are not in the habit of doing the legislative findings. What we do know is that for those States that found prices increasing, that they found various solutions to that. In one instance, and we might or may not say that it's unconstitutional, Massachusetts passed the mandatory coverage provision. But others adjusted some of the other provisions. Why shouldn't we let Congress do that, if in fact, the economists prove, some of the economists prove right, that prices will spiral? What's wrong with leaving it to — in the hands of the people who should be fixing this, not us?

MR. CLEMENT: Well, a couple of questions - a couple of responses, Justice Sotomayor. First of all, I think that it's very relevant here that Congress had before it as examples some of the States that had tried to impose guaranteed-issue and community rating and did not impose an individual mandate. And Congress rejected that model. So your question is quite right in the saying that it's not impossible to have guaranteed-issue and community-rating without an individual mandate. But it's a model that Congress looked at and specifically rejected. And then, of course, there is Congress's own finding, and their finding, of course, this is (i), which is 43(a)of the government's brief in the appendix, Congress specifically found that having the individual mandate is essential to the operation of guaranteed-issue and community-rating.

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: That's all it said it's essential to. I mean, I'm looking at it. The exchanges, the State exchanges are information- gathering facilities that tell insurers what the various policies actually mean. And that has proven to be a cost saver in many of the States who have tried it. So why should we be striking down a cost saver when if what your argument is, was, that Congress was concerned about costs rising? Why should we assume they wouldn't have passed that information?

MR. CLEMENT: I think a couple of things. One, you get — I mean, I would think you are going to have to take the bitter with the sweet. And if Congress — if we are going to look at Congress's goal of providing patient protection but also affordable care, we can't — I don't think it works to just take the things that save money and cut out the things that are going to make premiums more expensive. But at a minimum -

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: I want a bottom line is why don't we let Congress fix it?

 

[dogtowner]

insurance exchanges might be beneficial but you do not need a massive federal overhead for it.

 

[steveox]

DAY 3:

Here's transcripts from at least the morning of Wednesday's oral arguments. I guess there may be more coming out later. Haven't had time to read much this morning, it's hell at work today.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74596.html

The first few pages document Sotomayor's lecturing one of the anti-Obamacare lawyers, that Obamacare will work just fine, even without the mandate, as long as it's fine-tuned just right. She even interrupts him and tries to steer his replies.

I wonder if/when she will later stop arguing one side of the case, and become a Supreme Court Justice again. But she's definitely doing the job Obama appointed her to do: Promote liberalism wherever and whenever she can, "I swear to defend the Constitution" oath be damned.

A few excerpts:

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: I want a bottom line is why don't we let Congress fix it?

Good Idea! BTW Congress is Republican majority now

 

[dogtowner]

Good Idea! BTW Congress is Republican majority now

no it isnt. house only.

Congress can fix it by starting from scratch.

 

[Cruella]

That Paul Clement sounds brilliant. He ate Solas' and Sotomayers' lunch today. Hugh Hewitt calls him the Jeddi Lawyer.

 

[Little-Acorn]

And the hits just keep on coming.

Supreme Court justices are finding more and more strange stuff in the Obamacare bill, and sometime just break out in laughter at the craziness.

This is what happens when sensible people get the chance to examine in broad daylight, programs and schemes the liberals have been keeping hidden behind walls of bluster, propaganda, and disingenuous rhetoric.

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http://campaign2012.washingtonexami...aughs-senator-over-cornhusker-kickback/451151

SCOTUS laughs at senator over Cornhusker Kickback

by Joel Gehrke

Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., proved the unnamed butt of a joke at the Supreme Court hearing today, as the courtroom chuckled at Justice Scalia's suggestion that the court overturn the "Cornhusker Kickback" because it amounted to bribery.

Scalia used the Cornhusker Kickback in a question about the principle of severability. "f we struck down nothing in this legislation but the -- what you call the corn husker kickback, okay, we find that to violate the constitutional proscription of venality, okay?" Scalia said, drawing laughter throughout the courtroom. Venality means "the quality or principle of being for sale," and is associated with bribery.

"When we strike that down, it's clear that Congress would not have passed it without that. It was the means of getting the last necessary vote in the Senate. And you are telling us that the whole statute would fall because the corn husker kickback is bad. That can't be right."

Attorney Paul Clement argued that "it can be

" because "it's congressional intent that governs," and -- with respect to the individual mandate -- Obamacare would not have passed into law, because the individual mandate is an essential feature of the law.

"Cornhusker Kickback" is a derisive term for the deal that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., brokered with Nelson in order to get his essential 60th vote in support of Obamacare. In the deal, Nebraska received an exemption from the expense of Medicaid expansion.​

 

[Gipper]

Can you imagine the outrage by the Left if the Rs were to push through some huge new law WITHOUT ONE DEM VOTE?

Yet, not a word in the MSM about the fact that Obummercare was passed without ONE R VOTE in Congress and all sorts of shenanigans like the Cornhusker Kickback to get Ds in line. You see when the Ds commit over the top partisanship, that is just good government to the MSM.

 

[dogtowner]

Can you imagine the outrage by the Left if the Rs were to push through some huge new law WITHOUT ONE DEM VOTE?

Yet, not a word in the MSM about the fact that Obummercare was passed without ONE R VOTE in Congress and all sorts of shenanigans like the Cornhusker Kickback to get Ds in line. You see when the Ds commit over the top partisanship, that is just good government to the MSM.

the left lives in a continial state of outrage. its all false and contrived and as such, meaningless.