Yeah. All these half-measures and not-there-yet mandates are just wimp steps to avoid infuriating the OH NO SOCIALIZMS whiners and fools who, despite making up about 15% of the electorate, generate half of the political noise in the media.
Obama admin got this one right, regardless of the politics of it: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/...urt-to-throw-out-all-of-obamacare.php?ref=fpa The Glitch That Allows The Supreme Court To Throw Out All Of Obamacare We know there’s some chance the Supreme Court will decide to take a pass on President Obama’s health care law for a few years — until after its mandatory coverage mandate takes effect in 2014. And we know that if they do rule on the central challenge to the Affordable Care Act this year, precedent is on the side of upholding that piece of the law. But what happens if they determine that the mandate is unconstitutional anyhow? On Tuesday, the court will hear arguments about just how “severable” the ACA is. Major legislation often includes what’s known as a “severability clause,” to prevent courts from invalidating entire laws when they find that small sections of those laws violate the Constitution. By dint of a small, but highly consequential legislative oversight, the ACA does not include such a clause. That means it’ll be up to the justices to decide how much of the law can stand if they rule that the individual mandate violates the Constitution. There are three main possibilities: The court could throw out the mandate alone; they could throw out the mandate along with two other key provisions of the law that are very closely tied to the mandate; or they could throw out the entire thing. The challengers will argue that if the mandate falls, the rest of the law must go as well — that the law is “inseverable.” That, of course, is the conservative challengers’ ultimate goal. But it’s also a concession that the mandate is necessary if Congress is going to require insurance companies to sell coverage to all people, without bias to pre-existing medical conditions — one of the law’s central and most popular goals. So far only one federal trial court judge — Judge Roger Vinson of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida — has ruled that the entire law must go on the basis of his determination that the mandate is unconstitutional. “I think that it’s almost inconceivable that they would strike the entire statute,” said Timothy Jost — a legal scholar, and supporter of the health care law. “It would be a major threat to the legitimacy of the court.” There are important signs that he’s right. Vinson’s determination was reversed by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which also found the mandate unconstitutional, but held that it could be stricken without disturbing the rest of the law. The bathwater, but not the baby. As Samuel Y. Sessions and Allan S. Detsky wrote in The New England Journal of Medicine recently, “Many ACA provisions are already in effect and thus clearly can function without the mandate, which becomes effective in 2014.” That leaves the two other, likelier outcomes. In the event of an adverse ruling, the administration takes a peculiar view: that the law is “partially severable.” They say that if the court scotches the mandate, it should also eliminate provisions in the law guaranteeing that everybody will receive health insurance, regardless of prior health conditions. This reflects a certain policy rationale: that the health insurance system will crumble if people aren’t required to buy into it, and thus only sick people take advantage of the coverage guarantee. But the administration appears to be ceding a tremendous amount of political leverage by making this case. If the court strikes the mandate and the coverage guarantee, it will turn Obama’s signature accomplishment into a very modest one. If it strikes the mandate alone, Obama could demand, with great urgency, that Congress replace it with something less controversial — lest the insurance industry ultimately collapse. Jost is flabbergasted. “It’s beyond me,” he said. “It seems to me that they could argue that it’s a proper [instrument] without arguing that it’s completely essential.” The court, therefore, has enlisted an outside attorney — H. Bartow Farr III — to make that case. He’ll argue that if the court strikes the mandate then, as the 11th Circuit held, the entire rest of the law can stand. But when the attorneys defending the law argue otherwise, that’ll be a tough sell.
The most interesting argument for striking down the ACA mandate is that it is a violation of basic contract law, that an individual cannot be forced into a binding contract. http://reason.com/archives/2012/03/24/4-best-legal-arguments-against-obamacare The argument bypasses the Commerce Clause entirely.
No individual is forced to buy insurance though according to the bill. They'd just have to pay a fee if they didn't. There's forcing anyone to do anything. They are given a choice. Pay or buy insurance. They can choose either.
Either sign one of these contracts or we take something from you. that's force. absurd that you call that a 'choice'.
That's the tricky thing. There isn't anything in the bill that would authorize any sort of criminal proceeding against them. Really they would get off scott free. <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/MHiz4hazV94" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
From a practical perspective, this is no different than a tax break for buying an energy efficient car or anything else. If you buy a car or go to school or pay mortgage interest, you pay less taxes. Now, if you buy health insurance, you pay less taxes. Basically, taxes went up on everyone, but everyone gets an exemption if they have a qualifying health plan.
I cited this in another thread but there is precedent for this. The 1798 law that required merchant marine to buy health insurance or else face a penalty.
Contract law isn't applicable to the ACA mandate. Governments (local/state/federal) can enforce whatever law they want as long as it doesn't violate their respective constitutions. The Supreme Court needs to determine whether the enforcement of the ACA mandate falls within the powers delegated to the federal government by the Constitution. You can't just say the contract between you and the insurance company is null and void because the government law required you to buy a policy. Otherwise, the liability insurance that individual states "force" automobile drivers to purchase would be a violation as well.
Transcript of the oral arguments... http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/11-398-Monday.pdf
Audio if you dont want to read through that. http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_audio_detail.aspx?argument=11-398-Monday Also for those that dont want to read or listen, today was pretty boring. The discussion basically centered on whether the ACA constituted a tax because the anti-injunction act prohibits the court from reviewing a tax until after it has been levied. (which of course would throw out this case) The Court didnt sound like it was buying it. (and I agree with the Court on this) Other than that not much happened. The meat and bones of the case will happen later.
I should also add that the Obama administration wasn't making this argument. The court ordered someone to make this argument and then proceeded to laugh at the poor guy. Needless to say, Day 1 was a waste of time. All 9 justices thought this was stupid. Although weirdly enough the Obama administration is defending that the penalty is a "tax" but not in such a way that it is prevented from being litigated on under the anti-injunction act.
Looks like John Roberts may be agreeing with this line of thinking, though it's unclear because the context was different. We should probably get a better sense of it tomorrow: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/...-major-argument-against-obamacare.php?ref=fpa
They absolutely have made this argument in court (of course when they were selling the bill to the public it was not called a tax), and the Solicitor General tried to make it again today. In court they have argued the mandate is constitutional under congress' power to tax. Absolutely not a waste of time. Calling it a tax was how they justified it's constitutionality. If they lose that battle, it's going to be harder to uphold the mandate.
That's not what I said. I said the administration refused to argue that the case should be struck down under the anti-injunction act, not that it isn't a tax. Those are two different things. Specifically the solicitor general argued that these was a special circumstance that required a ruling immediately. A couple of IRS commissioners actually offered briefs stating that the case should be dismissed under those grounds and Alito made a fairly big deal about it. Either way, the discussion was less about whether the law was a tax and more about whether an exception can be carved out under the anti-injunction act. Go read the transcript and point out where the justices said this isn't a tax. Again responding to the wrong part. The merits of whether this is a tax or not will come up tomorrow. This was simply a discussion of the anti-injunction act and whether it could be applied. If the court had concluded that it should be applied, THEN we would be talking about whether this was a tax or not. The court seemed persuaded by the argument that we could exempt this case from the law so the discussion of taxation was not thoroughly discussed.
Hmmm your hero Reagan created this dilemma by "forcing" hospitals to treat patients even if they could not pay. As a result hospitals now giveaway billions in uncompensated care that leads to raising the bills on those of us that do pay. This is unsustainable and has come to a head. It cracks me up that Republicans want to continue to force businesses to giveaway services for free to those irresponsible welfare loving freeloaders who refuse to buy insurance. When Democrats want people to pay for those service by purchasing insurance the GOP calls it Socialism. It's beyond absurd.
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This is LITERALLY the direct transcript after what you quoted. Today was not about whether this is a tax or not.
