If the conservative judges rally together and view this bill strictly through a political lens – it’s likely that the entire bill will be invalidated. There doesn’t seem to be any interest among the Republican appointed judges to strike out the mandate and leave the rest standing. That’s a big if – we do not know where Roberts and Kennedy will end up; it seems likely that Scalia, Thomas and Alito are all going to be resoundingly against the law and will wish to strike it dead in full.
Presidents matter and the makeup of the Supreme Court that brought you findings like Citizens United are a result of the Republican party having been in a position to place the majority of Justices….bringing us back to the early 1900′s.
ScotusBlog gives you ALL the details:
The Supreme Court spent 91 minutes Wednesday operating on the assumption that it would strike down the key feature of the new health care law, but may have convinced itself in the end not to do that because of just how hard it would be to decide what to do after that. A common reaction, across the bench, was that the Justices themselves did not want the onerous task of going through the remainder of the entire 2,700 pages of the law and deciding what to keep and what to throw out, and most seemed to think that should be left to Congress. They could not come together, however, on just what task they would send across the street for the lawmakers to perform. The net effect may well have shored up support for the individual insurance mandate itself.
The dilemma could be captured perfectly in two separate comments by Justice Antonin Scalia — first, that it “can’t be right” that all of the myriad provisions of the law unrelated to the mandate had to fall with it, but, later, that if the Court were to strike out the mandate, “then the statute’s gone.” Much of the lively argument focused on just what role the Court would more properly perform in trying to sort out the consequences of nullifying the requirement that virtually every American have health insurance by the year 2014.
I think this quote says it all; you have to vote the people who stand against your interests OUT.
“The most important limit, the one we fought the Revolutionary War for, is that the people doing this to you are the people you elect. That’s the main check.”
~Akhil Reed Amar is Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University
Bloomberg has a massive LiveBlog HERE.
The WaPost interviews a former acting solicitor general regarding the case; he gives an interesting insight:
SK: What do you think we can glean from the oral arguments that have happened so far?
NK: It’s way too difficult to predict. The experience I had, when I argued the Voting Rights Act in 2009, was there were a lot of people who came out and said we were going to lose. Justice Kennedy was asking really hard questions, and then it was an 8-1 decision written by the Chief Justice. One of the great things about the Court is they ask hard questions about what’s on their mind, and test the logic of each side.
Some various moments from today’s session with the SCOTUS:
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: That’s all it said it’s essential to. I mean, I’m looking at it. Theexchanges, the State exchanges are information-gathering facilities that tell insurers what the variouspolicies actually mean. And that has proven to be acost saver in many of the States who have tried it. Sowhy should we be striking down a cost saver when if whatyour argument is, was, that Congress was concerned aboutcosts rising? Why should we assume they wouldn’t havepassed that information?
JUSTICE KAGAN: Although the exchangesfunction perfectly well in Utah where there is nomandate. They function differently, but they function.And the question is always, does Congress want half aloaf. Is half a loaf better than no loaf? And onsomething like the exchanges it seems to me a perfectexample where half a loaf is better than no loaf. Theexchanges will do something. They won’t do everythingthat Congress envisioned.
JUSTICE GINSBURG: Mr. Clement, there are somany things in this Act that are unquestionably okay.think you would concede that reauthorizing what is theIndian Healthcare Improvement Act changes to longbenefits, why make Congress redo those? I mean it’s aquestion of whether we say everything you do is no good,now start from scratch, or to say, yes, there are manythings in here that have nothing to do frankly with theaffordable healthcare and there are some that we thinkit’s better to let Congress to decide whether it wantsthem in or out.
JUSTICE ALITO: What would your fallbackposition be if — if we don’t accept the propositionthat if the mandate is declared unconstitutional, therest of the Act, every single provision, has to fall?Other — proposed other dispositions have been proposed.There’s the Solicitor General’s disposition, therecommended disposition to strike down theguaranteed-issue and community rating provisions. Oneof the — one amicus says strike down all of Title I,another one says strike down all of Title I and TitleII.What — what would you suggest?
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: How does yourproposal actually work? Your idea is that, well, theycan take care of it themselves later. I mean, do youcontemplate them bringing litigation and saying — Iguess the insurers would be the most obvious ones -without — without the mandate, the whole thing fallsapart and we’re going to bear a greater cost, and so therest of the law should be struck down.
JUSTICE KENNEDY: Assume that there is a, a substantialprobability that the 350 billion plus 350 billion equals7 is going to be cut in half if the individual mandateis – is stricken. Assume there is a significantpossibility of that. Is it within the proper exerciseof this Court’s function to impose that kind of risk?Can we say that the Congress would have intended thatthere be that kind of risk?
LISTEN to Day 3 of the SCOTUS session on Obamacare HERE.
READ the transcripts of the 3rd day of SCOTUS session on Obamacare HERE.
