Supreme court hears historic healthcare law
Source: Reuters
Snip< President Barack Obama's sweeping healthcare overhaul on Monday went before the U.S. Supreme Court where the nine justices began hearing arguments in a historic test of the law's validity under the U.S. Constitution.
Snip< A HISTORIC CASE
The arguments to be held over three days, and a modern record six hours, recall past momentous sessions, such as the 2000 presidential election dispute between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore and the 1974 Watergate tapes case that led to President Richard Nixon's resignation.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/26/us-usa-healthcare-court-idUSBRE82L1CJ20120326
nxylas
(6,440 posts)I'm sure they will carefully weigh the constitutional arguments to arrive at a thoughtful conclusion unsullied by any partisan consideration.
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Johnson20
(315 posts)I hope they will back the Constitution!
Ter
(4,281 posts)Many will say that means striking it down, while many will say it means leaving it alone.
skip fox
(19,359 posts)MaineDem
(18,161 posts)goclark
(30,404 posts)I think the quote was , " whatever my wife believes, I believe."
Yavin4
(35,442 posts)a huge majority of Americans would have no health insurance and no access to health care at all.
SCOTUS is between a rock and a hard place on this one because siding with POTUS will mean guaranteed customers, profit and dividends for their insurance company cronies and stockholders. Siding against POTUS will make the GOPnuts happy, but I don't think they pay the SCOTUS' speaking fees as much as the corporatists do.
harun
(11,348 posts)SomeGuyInEagan
(1,515 posts)On Minnesota Public Radio's first hour of "The Daily Circuit" this morning, the guests were talking about recent court decisions when they felt that the majority of the legal community felt the SC sidestepped the law and ruled on the side of politics (the Bush v. Gore and Citizens' United). One commentator said of the 17 decisions on ACA to this point that all but two could be easily predicted based on the politics and backgrounds of the justices.
And as I understand it, they simply cannot rule on the part pertaining to inclusion - if they rule against, they rule against the entire ACA. With the ruling coming out in June, that would (IMO) kickstart the progressive base for November.
Yavin4
(35,442 posts)We could go the other way with people no longer being able to get health insurance as employers will soon drop the benefit entirely.
We could become a nation where a majority of Americans would have no health insurance or be severely under covered by sham health insurance outlets.
My gut tells me that most Americans only learn through disaster.
SomeGuyInEagan
(1,515 posts)For the life of me, I cannot understand why more business groups aren't supporting a single payer solution, simply to rid themselves of the administration costs and overhead. That, plus that reality is that people in the work force would be more mobile, so they (employers) would not have people on their payroll staying around in jobs they are really thrilled with only because of the insurance benefits - they could move on to a job they really want, be more productive and the employers could replace them with someone who really wants that job.
'course, I don't have a MBA, so I guess I don't understand bidness.
AndyTiedye
(23,500 posts)Overturning HCR would be a huge boost for the Repiglickins.
They'd sweep the elections. It would be worse than 1994.
We'd probably lose Medicare and Medicaid.
Health care reform would become as radioactive as Fukushima.
Nobody would be able to go near it again for generations.
harun
(11,348 posts)muriel_volestrangler
(101,321 posts)What it is: The Court opens its oral arguments with a debate over whether it can even issue a ruling on the Affordable Care Act since its penalties for not carrying insurance have not come into effect yet. Under a law passed in 1867, the Anti-Injunction Act, a tax cannot be challenged until someone has actually had to pay it. Health reforms penalties dont start until 2015.
...
The individual mandate
What it is: The most-contested part of the health reform law, the Affordable Care Acts individual mandate requires nearly all Americans to carry health insurance. The legal question centers on whether such a regulation is permissible under the Commerce Clause, which allows the federal government to regulate interstate activity.
...
Severability
What it is: The question of whether the health reform law can stand without the individual mandate in legal parlance, whether the individual mandate is severable is a pretty crucial one. The Supreme Court will hear arguments on if it could strike down that part of the law, while letting the rest of it stand.
...
Medicaid Expansion
What it is: The health reform law expands Medicaid to cover everyone under 133 percent of the federal poverty line (about $14,000 for an individual) in 2014. Medicaid is run as a state-federal partnership and, right now, states are only required to cover specific demographics, groups like low-income, pregnant women and the blind or disabled.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/wonkbook-absolutely-everything-you-need-to-know-about-health-reform-supreme-court-debut/2012/03/26/gIQAb7adbS_blog.html
The Reuters article has been updated since the OP was made; it's now titled 'Supreme court unlikely to delay Obama healthcare ruling', and says the justices seem to agree that the rest of the cases can be heard now (unsurprising, since the government and the plaintiffs agree on that too). So that looks like the first part out of the way.
rayofreason
(2,259 posts)That one is done. It won't stop the SCOTUS from hearing the case.
http://www.scotusblog.com/2012/03/anti-injunction-act-oral-argument-in-plain-english/
This bit from the transcript is telling
JUSTICE GINSBURG: Mr. Long, you you said before and I think you were quite right that the Tax Injunction Act is modeled on the Anti-Injunction Act, and, under the Tax Injunction Act, what can't be enjoined is an assessment for the purpose of raising revenue. The Tax Injunction Act does not apply to penalties that are designed to induce compliance with the law rather than to raise revenue. And this is not a revenue-raising measure, because, if it's successful, they won't nobody will pay the penalty and there will be no revenue to raise.
Iliyah
(25,111 posts)will come in the future, and I know I might be in the minority when it comes to the mandate, which I fully endorse.
The overall Health Care Reform, which is far from perfect, does help at least 50 million or so American people. I know that at least 5 of the Supreme Court Justices usually vote against the country and the American people, and two of them should recuse themselves, seriously, so i find no comfort in them at all.
I also wonder why the GOP/tea brats hate America but thats another subject altogether.
Now the corporate media is saying that if the US Supreme court votes in favor of the reform than this will guarantee the gopper base to rise up and vote in Nov. which I truly is total BS because, many of the tea brats have benefited from from HCR.
cstanleytech
(26,295 posts)After all the elections are in nov and people like the teabaggers have short attention spans so if its thrown out now it may just pull the rug right out from under them.
Redneck Democrat
(58 posts)Kick anyway out of fairness.