Place Your Predictions - National Federation of Independant Business v. Sebelius - This Decision Will Determine Whether The Revolution Should Start Now!

[Selene]

I am hoping that it will be 6-3 to eliminate the mandate which should wreck the law. My further hope is that it will be 5-4 to repeal the entire 2,800 page tome of tyranny...

National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius

Linked with:

• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services v. Florida
  
• Florida v. Department of Health and Human Services
  

Docket No. Op. Below Argument Opinion Vote Author Term 11-393 11th Cir. Mar 28, 2012

Tr.Aud. TBD TBD TBD OT 2011

Issue: Whether the Affordable Care Act must be invalidated in its entirety because it is nonseverable from the individual mandate that exceeds Congress’s limited and enumerated powers under the Constitution. (Consolidated with Florida v. Department of Health and Human Services for ninety minutes of argument on this question.)

Plain English Issue: (1) Whether Congress can require states to choose between complying with provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or losing federal funding for the Medicaid program; and (2) whether, if the Court concludes that the provision of the Act requiring virtually all Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty is unconstitutional, the rest of the Act can remain in effect or must also be invalidated.

SCOTUSblog Coverage

• A reader's guide to health care ruling
  
• Health care: Time to sum up
  
• New plea to rule on health mandate
  
• Argument recap: A lift for the mandate? (FINAL UPDATE 5:12 pm)
  
• In Plain English: Is half a loaf better than no loaf?
  
• Further thoughts on today's severability argument
  
• Argument recap: Moving on to the mandate (FINAL UPDATE)
  
• Academic round-up
  
• Argument preview: Health care, Part III -- Beyond the mandate
  
• Argument preview: Health care, Part II -- Fate of the mandate
  

[Selene]

Intrade Odds On Obamacare: 74% Chance of Being Struckdown

Topics: Political News and commentaries

Traders on Intrade, the Ireland-based political stock market that allows users to predict world events, and has a good track record of forecasting American elections, say there is a 73.9% percent chance that the Supreme Court will toss out the individual mandate in Obamacare. Interestingly, most former Supreme Court attorneys and clerks agree with Intrade. Tomorrow, we find out if they're right. Hat tip - Washington Free Beacon

[George H. Smith]

6 to 3 against eliminating anything significant, including the mandate.

I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think SCOTUS has the balls to declare something of this magnitude unconstitutional.

Kennedy would be the original swing vote. Another justice then swings over to make it 6 to 3, to avoid a 5 to 4 decision.

Ghs

[9thdoctor]

I predict the mandate will get tossed, beyond that I can't say. I put the link to where you can follow it live here:

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=11902&st=60#entry165184

[9thdoctor]

ARGH!!!!

"The individual mandate survives as a tax."

[George H. Smith]

It looks like the mandate has survived, not under the commerce clause, but as a tax. True enough, SCOTUS didn't have the balls.

Just in: the entire health care act has survived, with the exception a minor provision regarding the states.

Ghs

[9thdoctor]

It looks like the mandate has survived, not under the commerce clause, but as a tax. True enough, SCOTUS didn't have the balls.

Just in: the entire health care act has survived, with the exception a minor provision regarding the states.

Ghs

Indeed, though CNN has a big banner at the top of the page right now reading: "Breaking news The Supreme Court has struck down the individual mandate for health care."

I'll be trusting Scotusblog for now. The PDF of the decision isn't available yet. They're saying Roberts vote saved it.

[9thdoctor]

It looks like the mandate has survived, not under the commerce clause, but as a tax.

"The Court holds that the mandate violates the Commerce Clause, but that doesn't matter b/c there are five votes for the mandate to be constitutional under the taxing power."

[Selene]

Say good-bye to the Republic - this is the final nail - it is over.

In opening his statement in dissent, Kennedy says: "In our view, the entire Act before us is invalid in its entirety."

[Selene]

In Plain English: The Affordable Care Act, including its individual mandate that virtually all Americans buy health insurance, is constitutional. There were not five votes to uphold it on the ground that Congress could use its power to regulate commerce between the states to require everyone to buy health insurance. However, five Justices agreed that the penalty that someone must pay if he refuses to buy insurance is a kind of tax that Congress can impose using its taxing power. That is all that matters. Because the mandate survives, the Court did not need to decide what other parts of the statute were constitutional, except for a provision that required states to comply with new eligibility requirements for Medicaid or risk losing their funding. On that question, the Court held that the provision is constitutional as long as states would only lose new funds if they didn't comply with the new requirements, rather than all of their funding.

[9thdoctor]

And here's the whole shebang, for the masochists among us:

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

[Selene]

And here's the whole shebang, for the masochists among us:

http://www.supremeco.../11-393c3a2.pdf

Thanks. I was just about to post this but I have calls coming in of absolute fury about this despicable decision.

[Selene]

For readers of the opinion, a quick look at pp. 31 and 32 of Roberts' opinion tells you why the Court is sustaining as a tax measure.

[Selene]

From the beginning of the Chief's opinion: "We do not consider whether the Act embodies sound policies. That judgment is entrusted to the Nation's elected leaders. We ask only whether Congress has the power under the Constitution to enact the challenged provisions.

[Selene]

Salvaging the idea that Congress did have the power to try to expand health care to virtually all Americans, the Supreme Court on Monday upheld the constitutionality of the crucial – and most controversial — feature of the Affordable Care Act. By a vote of 5-4, however, the Court did not sustain it as a command for Americans to buy insurance, but as a tax if they don’t. That is the way Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., was willing to vote for it, and his view prevailed. The other Justices split 4-4, with four wanting to uphold it as a mandate, and four opposed to it in any form.

[Selene]

Geraldo Rivera, just enunciated advanced stupidity above and beyond his pay grade.

He just actually said, "Now, the Republicans are going to spin this as a tax." The caller's voice just went up, in incredulity, at the stupidity and innate bias that Rivera has in his heart. and said, "IT IS A TAX. THE COURT JUST SAID IT WAS!" And numb nuts, realizing the blunder, said, uh well yeah it is a tax.

[Selene]

From Roberts Opinion, bottom of page 30:

"Just as the individual mandate cannot be sustained as a law regulating the substantial effects of the failure to purchase health insurance, neither can it be upheld asa “necessary and proper” component of the insurance reforms. The commerce power thus does not authorize the mandate. Accord, post, at 4–16 (joint opinion of SCALIA, KENNEDY, THOMAS, and ALITO, JJ., dissenting).

(continuing on page 31):

That is not the end of the matter. Because the Commerce Clause does not support the individual mandate, itis necessary to turn to the Government’s second argument: that the mandate may be upheld as within Congress’s enumerated power to “lay and collect Taxes.” Art. I, §8,

cl. 1.

The Government’s tax power argument asks us to view the statute differently than we did in considering its commerce power theory. In making its Commerce Clause argument, the Government defended the mandate as a regulation requiring individuals to purchase health insurance. The Government does not claim that the taxing power allows Congress to issue such a command. Instead, the Government asks us to read the mandate not as ordering individuals to buy insurance, but rather as imposing a tax on those who do not buy that product.

The text of a statute can sometimes have more than one possible meaning. To take a familiar example, a law that reads “no vehicles in the park” might, or might not, ban bicycles in the park. And it is well established that if a statute has two possible meanings, one of which violates the Constitution, courts should adopt the meaning that does not do so. Justice Story said that 180 years ago: “No court ought, unless the terms of an act rendered it unavoidable, to give a construction to it which should involve a violation, however unintentional, of the constitution.” Parsons v. Bedford, 3 Pet. 433, 448–449 (1830). Justice Holmes made the same point a century later: “[T]he rule is settled that as between two possible interpretations of a statute, by one of which it would be unconstitutional and by the other valid, our plain duty is to adopt that which will save the Act.” Blodgett v. Holden, 275 U. S. 142, 148 (1927) (concurring opinion).

The most straightforward reading of the mandate is that it commands individuals to purchase insurance.

After all, it states that individuals “shall” maintain health insurance. 26 U. S. C. §5000A(a). Congress thought it could enact such a command under the Commerce Clause, and the Government primarily defended the law on that basis. But, for the reasons explained above, the Commerce Clause does not give Congress that power. Under our precedent, it is therefore necessary to ask whether the Government’s alternative reading of the statute—that it only imposes a tax on those without insurance—is a reasonable one.

Under the mandate, if an individual does not maintain health insurance, the only consequence is that he must make an additional payment to the IRS when he pays his taxes. See §5000A(b). That, according to the Government,means the mandate can be regarded as establishing a condition—not owning health insurance—that triggers a tax—the required payment to the IRS. Under that theory, the mandate is not a legal command to buy insurance.Rather, it makes going without insurance just another thing the Government taxes, like buying gasoline or earning income. And if the mandate is in effect just a tax hike on certain taxpayers who do not have health insurance, it may be within Congress’s constitutional power to tax.

[Brant Gaede]

If Romney is elected we might still get rid of this damn thing. I'm holding my breath. Opps! That didn't work!

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

Geraldo Rivera, just enunciated advanced stupidity above and beyond his pay grade.

He just actually said, "Now, the Republicans are going to spin this as a tax." The caller's voice just went up, in incredulity, at the stupidity and innate bias that Rivera has in his heart. and said, "IT IS A TAX. THE COURT JUST SAID IT WAS!" And numb nuts, realizing the blunder, said, uh well yeah it is a tax.

That guy made his chops by barging into a story that belonged to someone else, I think about 40 years ago. His basic charm is not knowing he's always in over his intellectual head.

--Brant

[George H. Smith]

Geraldo Rivera, just enunciated advanced stupidity above and beyond his pay grade.

He just actually said, "Now, the Republicans are going to spin this as a tax." The caller's voice just went up, in incredulity, at the stupidity and innate bias that Rivera has in his heart. and said, "IT IS A TAX. THE COURT JUST SAID IT WAS!" And numb nuts, realizing the blunder, said, uh well yeah it is a tax.

That guy made his chops by barging into a story that belonged to someone else, I think about 40 years ago. His basic charm is not knowing he's always in over his intellectual head.

--Brant

Rivera's head is like Capone's vault that he hyped decades ago: Both are empty.

Ghs

[Mikee]

Nowhere to go but up from here.

[Brant Gaede]

Geraldo Rivera, just enunciated advanced stupidity above and beyond his pay grade.

He just actually said, "Now, the Republicans are going to spin this as a tax." The caller's voice just went up, in incredulity, at the stupidity and innate bias that Rivera has in his heart. and said, "IT IS A TAX. THE COURT JUST SAID IT WAS!" And numb nuts, realizing the blunder, said, uh well yeah it is a tax.

That guy made his chops by barging into a story that belonged to someone else, I think about 40 years ago. His basic charm is not knowing he's always in over his intellectual head.

--Brant

Rivera's head is like Capone's vault that he hyped decades ago: Both are empty.

Ghs

I remember watching that show. I knew it was bs from the start and only stayed tuned for the entertainment value.

--Brant

[william.scherk]

Geraldo Rivera has had a wonderful career as a lightweight 'journalist'/entertainer, with a long record of being stupid and uninformed. He was part of the moral panic over Satanic Ritual Abuse conspiracies. Here is him at his worst:

"Estimates are that there are over 1 million Satanists in this country...The majority of them are linked in a highly organized, very secretive network. From small towns to large cities, they have attracted police and FBI attention to their Satanic ritual child abuse, child pornography and grisly Satanic murders. The odds are that this is happening in your town."

His highest rated "Geraldo" show was devoted to Satanic Ritual Abuse, in a prime-time two hour special in October 1988.

The Religious Tolerance site describes the show:

Throughout the show, Rivera kept telling his viewers that the program was not suitable for young children to watch. He said near the start: "The very young and impressionable should definitely not be watching this program tonight...This is not a Halloween fable." At various times, he said: Get them away from the TV during the next report." or "I am begging you...Please get them out of the room, or change the station!" Unfortunately, such disclaimers often serve to increase the number of child viewers. And the timing of the show during prime time just before Halloween has moved some skeptics to wonder about Geraldo's sincerity.

He later (after the damage was done) apologized for this program. From the same page at the RT site:

"I want to announce publicly that as a firm believer of the 'Believe The Children' movement of the 1980's, that started with the McMartin trials in CA, but NOW I am convinced that I was terribly wrong... and many innocent people were convicted and went to prison as a result....AND I am equally positive [that the] 'Repressed Memory Therapy Movement' is also a bunch of CRAP..."

Geraldo apparently had a change of heart at some time during the latter half of 1995. He is to be commended for stating his new belief in public. Unfortunately, a one minute apology and recantation is hardly sufficient to reverse the damage done by many hours of sensational programming, grounded on misinformation.

[BaalChatzaf]

We lose!

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Mikee]

Interesting pov: http://www.redstate....n-john-roberts/

"John Roberts is playing at a different game than the rest of us. We’re on poker. He’s on chess."

More optimism.